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Articles by Christopher Connell
Disruption in College Athletics: Turmoil Over Intercollegiate Athletics Sets Presidents and Boards Scrambling
ILLUSTRATION BY JIM STARR When 40 former University of North Carolina football players and their old coach, Larry Fedora, journeyed back to Chapel Hill for a teammate’s wedding, one turned to Fedora at the reception and said, “Coach, I feel sorry for these guys, today’s players.” “What do you mean?” asked Fedora. “They’ll never have this, ever,” he replied, gesturing toward the former Tar Heel athletes.
Local immigrant community faces fear, uncertainty over deportations
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Fear, uncertainty over deportations in Rappahannock, Culpeper and region
Immigrant community bracing for unknown amidst crackdown Isabella was two months pregnant when she and husband José made the treacherous trek through the desert and across the U.S. border from Mexico 17 years ago and made their way to rural Virginia where they’d heard there was farm work. Today they are still successfully pursuing that American dream. He mows grass, makes hay and tends sheep and horses. She cleans houses. They own cars, have driver’s licenses and pay taxes.
By the numbers: immigrants without legal status
While debates swirl about immigrants in the United States without legal status, this remains a country of immigrants. Forty-six million people in America and 1.1 million in Virginia are foreign born, according to the Census Bureau. Most are naturalized citizens. They make key contributions to the economy and their communities.
Fear, uncertainty over deportations in Culpeper region
Isabella was two months pregnant when she and husband José made the treacherous trek through the desert and across the U.S. border from Mexico 17 years ago and made their way to rural Virginia where they’d heard there was farm work. Today they are still successfully pursuing that American dream. He mows grass, makes hay and tends sheep and horses. She cleans houses. They own cars, have driver’s licenses and pay taxes.
One employer’s perspective on immigrant workers
Sempergreen USA, the nation’s leading supplier of so-called green roofs — vegetation that reduces wastewater runoff in storm drains and improves air quality — employs 10 Mexican workers it flies in each year to do much of the work at its nursery in Culpeper. They enter legally on H-2A Temporary Agricultural Worker visas for nine months, live communally in two houses at a trailer camp built by owner Oscar Warmerdam, 54, of Haymarket, and return to Mexico when their time is up.
Fear, uncertainty over deportations in Rappahannock, Culpeper and region
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Trusteeship: November/December 2024
Table of Contents Activism on Campus By Christopher Connell Campus activism is not new—protests and demonstrations have been happening at different inflection points for decades. Earlier this year another moment in history brought about another wave of campus protests. In these tense times, it’s crucial for higher education boards to understand their role in shaping and defending college and university policies for dealing with potential protests and disruptions.
The Role of College and University Boards in Turbulent Times
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Activism on Campus
Campus activism is not new—protests and demonstrations have been happening at different inflection points for decades. Earlier this year another moment in history brought about another wave of campus protests. In these tense times, it’s crucial for higher education boards to understand their role in shaping and defending college and university policies for dealing with potential protests and disruptions.
A walk on the wild side? Perils lurk in Shenandoah National Park for the unprepared
Cruising along serene Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, it’s easy to forget how quickly the park juts into backcountry wilderness, where innumerable rocky trails lead to breathtaking vistas, cliffs and waterfalls. But those adventures also expose Sunday tourists and even experienced hikers to perils for which some are ill-prepared, from sprains and fractures to hypothermia and heart attacks.
A walk on the wild side? Perils lurk in Shenandoah National Park for the unprepared
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A walk on the wild side? Perils lurk in Shenandoah National Park for the unprepared
Cruising along serene Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, it’s easy to forget how quickly the park juts into backcountry wilderness, where innumerable rocky trails lead to breathtaking vistas, cliffs and waterfalls but also expose Sunday tourists and even experienced hikers to perils for which some are ill-prepared, from sprains and fractures to hypothermia and heart attacks.
Trusteeship: May/June 2024
Table of Contents Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Higher Education, Part 2 By David Tobenkin This is the second of a two-part series on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on colleges and universities. The first part of this series, “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Higher Education,” published in the January/February 2024 issue of Trusteeship, examined the increasing prevalence of AI applications in higher education instruction, research, and institutional operations.
A walk on the wild side? Perils lurk in Shenandoah National Park for the unprepared
Cruising along serene Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park (SNP), it’s easy to forget how quickly the park juts into backcountry wilderness, where innumerable rocky trails lead to breathtaking vistas, cliffs and waterfalls but also expose Sunday tourists and even experienced hikers to perils for which some are ill-prepared, from sprains and fractures to hypothermia and heart attacks.
A walk on the wild side? Perils lurk in Shenandoah National Park for the unprepared
Cruising along serene Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park (SNP), it’s easy to forget how quickly the park juts into backcountry wilderness, where innumerable rocky trails lead to breathtaking vistas, cliffs and waterfalls but also expose Sunday tourists and even experienced hikers to perils for which some are ill-prepared, from sprains and fractures to hypothermia and heart attacks.
Local state Senate race could tip the balance of power in Richmond
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An African-American weekly carries on a proud legacy
The Richmond Free Press, an African-American weekly newspaper, was established in 1992, but if it seems much older it may be because its late founder, Raymond H. Boone, was at the center of covering the struggle for civil rights for half a century. Boone started out in the late 1950s and 1960s, when Virginia embraced massive resistance to desegregation and suppressed the rights of Black voters.
Editors’ efforts to hold onto readers and advertisers
‘We don’t want to shut down’ Norman Styer has devoted his career to reporting news in Loudoun County, an outer Washington suburb that has quintupled in population over 30 years and is now Virginia’s third-most populous county. He signed on as Leesburg Today’s first full-time reporter in 1989 and was editor-in-chief in 2015 when rival Loudoun Times-Mirror purchased it and shut it down the next day.
News industry travails pose challenges for Virginia’s specialty papers
Newspapers that specialize in covering the interests and concerns of Black Americans, ethnic groups, gay readers and other targeted groups face the same economic and demographic challenges that buffet general-interest newspapers in Virginia, including declining ad revenues and aging readerships.
Nonprofit news organizations step in where some Virginia papers pulled back
There’s a ray of light shining in the otherwise bleak landscape of local news: a profusion of new, colorful websites where readers can find out what’s happening now instead of waiting until morning or midweek. These include the homepages of legacy newspapers themselves, but also nonprofit start-ups such the Virginia Mercury and Cardinal News, as well as an older news organization, Charlottesville Tomorrow, which has reoriented itself to ensure coverage of diverse communities in Albemarle County.
Editors work to hold onto readers and advertisers
A nonprofit digs deeper into news online Six years out of college, Sarah Vogelsong made $11 an hour when she landed her first newspaper job at the Caroline Progress in 2014. The minimum wage in the Commonwealth was $7.25 at that time. She left in 2016, two years before the paper closed.
Creating a ‘Worthy’ Community Newspaper
This story is part of a series highlighting stories from the front lines of local news reporting in Virginia. It is presented as part of the Virginia Local News Summit, co-hosted with the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy which took place April 20-21, 2023. By Christopher Connell for Foothills Forum When Tom Lappas graduated from the University of Richmond with a journalism degree in 1998, his dream job was to become a sportswriter at a daily.
Nonprofit news organizations step in where Virginia papers pulled back
There’s a ray of light shining in the otherwise bleak landscape of local news: a profusion of new, colorful websites where readers can find out what’s happening now instead of waiting until morning or midweek. These include the homepages of legacy newspapers themselves, but also nonprofit start-ups such the Virginia Mercury and Cardinal News, as well as an older news organization, Charlottesville Tomorrow, which has reoriented itself to ensure coverage of diverse communities in Albemarle County.
Chronologie des relations entre les États-Unis et la République de Corée
Le président John F. Kennedy signe la loi Fulbright-Hays en 1961, et un accord bilatéral Fulbright entre les États-Unis et la République de Corée est conclu quelques années plus tard. (La Korean-American Educational Commission ouvre ses portes en 1972.) À ce jour, plus de 32 000 citoyens américains et sud-coréens ont participé à des échanges universitaires parrainés par le gouvernement.
As newspapers struggle, local news is harder to find in Virginia
It is, unfortunately, old news. Virginia’s newspapers, the single biggest source of local news, face unprecedented challenges, with their readers, revenues and staffs steadily dwindling. It’s a paradox because news writ large now seems to be available everywhere, all the time, on phones in our pockets and purses. People still hear about bickering in Congress, mysterious Chinese balloons overhead and blizzards burying Buffalo.
As some newspapers struggle, local news is harder to find in Virginia
It is, unfortunately, old news. Virginia’s newspapers, the single biggest source of local news, face unprecedented challenges, with their readers, revenues and staffs steadily dwindling. It’s a paradox because news writ large now seems to be available everywhere, all the time, on phones in our pockets and purses. People still hear about bickering in Congress, mysterious Chinese balloons overhead and blizzards burying Buffalo.
As Newspapers Struggle, Local News is Harder to Find in Virginia
By Christopher Connell for Foothills Forum It is, unfortunately, old news. Virginia’s newspapers, the single biggest source of local news, face unprecedented challenges, with their readers, revenues and staffs steadily dwindling. It’s a paradox because news writ large now seems to be available everywhere, all the time, on phones in our pockets and purses. People still hear about bickering in Congress, mysterious Chinese balloons overhead and blizzards burying Buffalo.
Ireland: DPC Produces “Significant Outputs” for 2022 Concluding 17 Large Scale Inquiries
The Data Protection Commission (DPC) has published its 2022 Annual Report, highlighting the DPC’s progress on (i) ongoing large-scale inquiries (in particular against social media platforms), (ii) defence of cross-border decisions, and (iii) increased interaction with the European Data Protection Board (EDPB). Two-thirds of the GDPR fines issued by EU data protection authorities last year where from the DPC, illustrating a continued commitment to enforcement.
A small-town success story
If you go out to the coffee shop in Monterey, Va., with The Recorder publisherAnne Adams, don’t expect to eat quickly. “It’s very difficult to get through lunch,” said Betsy Edwards, executive director of the Virginia Press Association. “Every single person will have to stop and talk with her, tell her something, gossip with her.” Adams, whose 32-year career at the weekly has taken her from copy setter to printer to general manager to publisher, acknowledges as much.
Editors’ efforts to hold onto readers and advertisers
A nonprofit digs deeper into news online Six years out of college, Sarah Vogelsong made $11 an hour when she landed her first newspaper job at the Caroline Progress in 2014. The minimum wage in the Commonwealth was $7.25 at that time. She left in 2016, two years before the paper closed.
Mixing small town politics and journalism
When the Christmas parade float bearing grand marshal Billy Coleburn, longtime mayor of Blackstone, Va., rolled through the small Southside town, he hopped down and began snapping photos of the colorful marching bands, cheerleaders, elves, beaming bystanders and a prize cow. He knew the local paper, the Courier-Record, would run a bunch because he is also the owner, publisher and editor of the weekly.
A county left without a newspaper
Greg Glassner worked at six newspapers over a 42-year career: afternoon dailies in Syracuse, N.Y., and Norfolk, and four weeklies in Virginia, only one of which is still publishing, the Madison County Eagle. He edited the Herald-Progress in Ashland for eight years and later did a stint as interim editor of its sister paper, the Caroline Progress in Bowling Green, as well as contributing columns and features before retiring.
An African-American paper endures in Southwest
Claudia A. Whitworth was 18 in 1945 when she began working with her father on the Roanoke Tribune, the African-American weekly he founded shortly before World War II. In its columns, the Rev. F.E. Alexander – Baptist minister, journalist and printer – sounded a clarion call for the South to turn the page on racism and segregation. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v.
No reporters on staff
Lifelong newspaperman Carlos Santos was once part of a three-person Richmond Times-Dispatch bureau in Charlottesville, one of several outposts across the Commonwealth for Virginia’s second-largest daily. Laid off in 2009 along with dozens of other reporters as the Times-Dispatch pulled back from its statewide coverage, he stayed in the business by purchasing the weekly Fluvanna Review in Palmyra, 20 miles south of Charlottesville.
En cas de séisme, ces secouristes américains sont toujours prêts
Quand ces capitaines des pompiers de la banlieue Washington vérifient leurs applis de détection des séismes, c’est plus que par simple curiosité. Tracey Reed fait partie d’une équipe de recherche et de sauvetage en milieu urbain que l’Agence des États-Unis pour le développement international (USAID) maintient en alerte au cas où des pays auraient besoin d’aide pour extraire des décombres les survivants d’un séisme. « On est toujours prêts.
Trusteeship: January/February 2023
Table of Contents Features What Boards Need to Know about Online Opportunities By Christopher Connell Faculty recognize post-COVID-19 on interviews with more than 2,000 interviews with students, faculty, some of the advantages and administrators, parents, young alumni, job recruiters, and trustees, their possibilities of teaching online, research examines what higher education is and what it can be. and students don’t want to give up the flexibility of choosing when and where to do coursework.
What Boards Need to Know about Online Opportunities
Online course offerings were proliferating in higher education long before COVID-19 came along and compelled colleges to switch overnight from face-to-face to remote instruction. Even the most reluctant professors learned quickly not just how to deliver lectures via Zoom but how to field questions, orchestrate discussions, and provide source materials online when the library was off-limits.
Why are data centers so noisy? Loose rules, pricey solutions, critics say
When people buy homes under the flight path to an airport, their complaints about the noise may fall on deaf ears. But some residents of Prince William County never bargained for the constant, annoying buzz from data centers near their neighborhood and others in Fauquier are concerned about a new data center slated for Warrenton. Why can’t the data centers be made quieter?
Habitat finds a key to affordable housing
Linneka Greene struggled for years to find affordable housing in Warrenton despite having a steady job at a clinical lab testing company. When she and her son wound up homeless for an eight-month stretch, she followed a disciplined regimen to spare the 4-year-old the worst indignities of not having a roof over their heads. “I had to come up with a plan,” said Greene, 39, who is now partnering with Fauquier Habitat for Humanity to build a new home on Haiti Street.
Rappahannock’s dark sky protectors worry as development marches west
On a moonless night in late August a cluster of people moved gingerly in the Rappahannock County Park shadows to take turns peering at the starry sky through amateur astronomers’ telescopes. The sun had slipped below the horizon an hour earlier. Dusk fell during a lecture and slide show in the picnic pavilion and the stars emerged, faintly at first, then as bright as a planetarium show.
Rappahannock’s dark sky protectors worry as development marches west
On a moonless night in late August a cluster of people moved gingerly in the Rappahannock County Park shadows to take turns peering at the starry sky through amateur astronomers’ telescopes. The sun had slipped below the horizon an hour earlier. Dusk fell during a lecture and slide show in the picnic pavilion and the stars emerged, faintly at first, then as bright as a planetarium show.
Trusteeship: July/August
Table of Contents Features Pandemic Leadership: Lessons Learned at Six Institutions By David Tobenkin Leaders pivoted quickly to negotiate the pandemic, but many lessons learned have lasting value. This article explores how the leadership at six institutions responded to the needs of their campuses, tested the bounds and effectiveness of governance models, and innovated new services to help students adapt to unprecedented challenges.
For some long-suffering residents, the wait for Elon Musk’s satellite internet is over
For Marylyn and Michael Paige, internet service at their home in Delaplane near Little Cobbler Mountain “has always been awful,” even when they paid a premium for the fastest service satellite company Viasat offered, she said. “You’d get cut off if you were trying to stream a movie, especially on a weekend.” That changed a few weeks ago when a FedEx truck delivered a box for which they’d waited more than a year. It contained a 19-inch, 9-lb.
Remembering 9/11: Miles from the Pentagon, local high school students react with panic, a resolve to serve
Veteran high school teacher Dave Smith had risen before dawn that September morning to prepare what he called “news notes” to spark discussions among the seniors in his U.S. government classes. The choice for the Sept. 11, 2001, compendium of civic and political developments class was easy, he recalled. It was primary day in New York City to choose a successor to Mayor Rudy Giuliani. His classroom at Fauquier High was in the school’s annex.
Remembering 9/11: Black smoke over Arlington
The limousine driver had not turned the radio on as he drove the Moreau family to Arlington National Cemetery that morning for the funeral of retired Navy Chief Petty Officer and systems engineer Raymond Moreau. His son Ray Moreau, of Manassas, was in the limo, on his way to saying a last goodbye to his father.
Northern Virginians remember 9/11 decades later
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Supervisor: Broadband will be available to all in Fauquier County within 3 years
The misery of poor internet connections has vexed homeowners, farmers and other businesses in large, rural swaths of Fauquier County for years. The pandemic only made the situation worse, as parents working from home shared weak, slow signals with kids doing schoolwork. The county has tried to fill the gaps, in part by subsidizing construction of towers to beam wireless internet into nearby neighborhoods. But now prospects for universal broadband across the whole county are brighter than ever.
Gerhardt: Broadband will be available to all in Fauquier within three years
The misery of poor internet connections has vexed homeowners, farmers and other businesses in large, rural swaths of Fauquier for years. The pandemic only made the situation worse, as parents working from home shared weak, slow signals with kids doing schoolwork. The county has tried to fill the gaps, in part by subsidizing construction of towers to beam wireless internet into nearby neighborhoods. But now prospects for universal broadband across the whole county are brighter than ever.
Trusteeship: July/August
Trusteeship: July/August Volume 29, Number 4 // July/August 2021 Table of Contents Features Winning Amazon HQ2 By Christopher Connell With Amazon’s second headquarters up for grabs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)—and its institutionally related foundation, the Virginia Tech Foundation—were ready.
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