The University of Richmond will host a debate among the five candidates for mayor of Richmond Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. in Tyler Haynes Commons, Alice Haynes Room. The debate is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow.

Questioners will represent local media, including the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Centro, Style Weekly, WWBT TV-12 and the university’s student newspaper, The Collegian. Audience members may submit questions, which moderator Dan Palazzolo, professor of political science, will ask as time permits.

All five candidates for Richmond mayor—Paul Goldman, Robert J. Grey Jr., Dwight C. Jones, William J. Pantele and Lawrence Williams—have agreed to participate.

University sponsors of the debate include the Office of the President, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, Richmond School of Law, Bonner Center for Civic Engagement and the Center for Government and Policy.

For more information, call (804) 289-8056.

University of Richmond Fans, allow lots of extra time to get to the game on Saturday. West of the Boulevard and Carytown South, get ready for lots of extra traffic and delays. The T-D reports:

The University of Richmond athletic department is projecting a crowd in excess of 10,000 Saturday for the fifth-ranked Spiders’ game the top-ranked James Madison University Dukes.

The 3:30 p.m. game between the two Football Championship Subdivision teams will be played at the off-campus University of Richmond Stadium (formerly City Stadium), and UR encourages fans to arrive early and to obey parking regulations on neighborhood roads.

Stadium parking lots will open at 11:30 a.m. Ticket booths, will-call windows and stadium gates will open at 2 p.m.

The Richmond Police Department will enforce no-parking restrictions on neighborhood streets. Cars will be towed from no-parking areas. There are several parking options east of the stadium off McCloy Street, including at John B. Cary Elementary School on Maplewood Avenue. Police officers will direct patrons to those areas.

As reported in today’s Times-Dispatch, the University of Richmond is one of about 1,000 schools affected by Commonfund’s Short Term Fund’s decision to partially freeze withdrawals this week.  Wachovia Corp is trustee for the $9.3 billion fund. 

According to the article:

Herb Peterson, UR’s vice president for business and finance, called the action “concerning but understandable.”

UR has $100 million invested with the fund. He said UR has access to
$40 million of that amount now “and we’ll get the rest of it.”

Peterson said the action was necessary to prevent a run on the fund
that would force a sell-off of investments. He did not expect it to
cause a problem for UR.

“It was the right thing to do to avoid taking losses that would have cost all of us money,” he said.

Today, Wednesday October 1st, Barack Obama and John McCain’s top energy advisors will be debating at the University of Richmond Law School. What better way to get your questions answered about what Obama and McCain plan on doing! There is no better way to show what we want from a clean energy future than to speak directly to the people who write the policies during your lunchbreak!!

WHEN: Wednesday October 1st, 12:15 PM
WHERE: University of Richmond School of Law, Moot Court Room
Directions: http://www.richmond.edu/visit/directions
Map of campus: http://www.richmond.edu/visit/directions/campusmap.pdf

The University of Richmond recently announced that it is the recipient of 153 original Andy Warhol photos.  They will be on display in the Spring of 2009, according to Artdaily.org. For the full story click here.

RICHMOND, VA.- The University of Richmond Museums is pleased to announce the recent addition of 153 original Andy Warhol photographs to the permanent collection of the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, gifted as part of the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program. In celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the organization donated more than 28,500 original Warhol photographs valued at more than $28 million and divided amongst 183 college and university art museums in the United States. The University of Richmond Museums is honored to be selected as a recipient of this extraordinary gift.

The University of Richmond Museums will organize an exhibition showcasing the works in the spring of 2009. Warhol’s “Photographs and Pictures”: Selections from the Gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is scheduled to be on view from March 20 to May 22, 2009 in the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art. The exhibition will be curated by Lucy Green, ‘09, art history major, University of Richmond, and will be the subject of her senior thesis project.

Style Weekly’s Amy Biegelsen does a great job profiling University of Richmond’s President, Ed Ayers, as he celebrates his one-year anniversary at U of R.  The cover story captures that likability exudes from him.  And, to top it off, he’s got a way of putting things that keeps it real.  When asked about his experience so far at UR, he says,

“It’s been so positive, it would sound dishonest if I told you,” he demurs.

 The story continues:

He wants more cross-pollination among the schools and departments, more international students, more students from different income brackets. But his desire to reunite the school with the city crowns the overarching vision of a more inclusive campus.

…..Ayers also wants UR to be more inclusive in its own backyard, and he’s leading the push to bring the university downtown, literally. The new pro bono family law clinic, called UR Downtown, will sit across the street from the new federal courthouse on Eighth and Broad streets. Students from the law school will staff it alongside students from VCU’s School of Social Work. The center is slated to open in the fall.

The story offers much insight to an interesting and complicated man.  Also, it touches on the complicated issue of race  relations on a campus that has been voted the most homogeneous in the nation in past years.  It is well worth the read.

Ten days late and a dollar short….The Times-Dispatch finally came out with an article on the Modlin Center’s 2008-2009 season. 
We covered it  back on June 5th, so maybe you already reserved your excellent seats, before the masses even knew about it.

I came across a pretty cool blog post today about how the University of Richmond offers free bus service to their employees. Check it out:

About a month ago I moved into Church Hill, a neighborhood just east of downtown Richmond. It’s a great location, and I love living in the city, having such close access to a huge range of restaurants, coffee shops, museums, parks, cultural events… (I could go on about how awesome Richmond is, but I’ll save that for another post.)

I was also thrilled to learn that, beginning last month, the University of Richmond would be providing free access to public transportation for all of its faculty and staff. How great is that?? President Ayers is working on ways to make the University more environmentally-conscious and environmentally-friendly, and this initiative is one way of doing so.

The University is partnering with the Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC), which runs the city’s extensive bus network, to provide faculty and staff with transit to campus (there’s a city bus stop right at our gateway entrance). And now that I live in the city, I have a bus stop about two blocks from my house.

University of Richmond senior pitcher Alex Hale was drafted Friday, taken by the reigning World Series Champion Boston Red Sox in the 30th-round of the 2008 First-Year Player Draft. Hale was the 922nd pick overall by Boston and represented the 16th Spider drafted in the last seven years.

[via CSTV]