Virginia Commonwealth University

Virginia Commonwealth University Official account of VCU. We do things differently here, because we know that different works.

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Consider this your sign to show up, get involved & make memories. There’s only ONE week left! 👀🐏✨Weeks of Welcome is cal...
08/29/2026

Consider this your sign to show up, get involved & make memories. There’s only ONE week left! 👀🐏✨
Weeks of Welcome is calling!

Growing up, Iresha Picot never imagined a life outside of her small hometown city of Franklin in Virginia’s Hampton Road...
08/28/2026

Growing up, Iresha Picot never imagined a life outside of her small hometown city of Franklin in Virginia’s Hampton Roads region. Then she came to VCU.

“It was the first time I saw myself differently,” said Picot, a 2007 graduate with degrees in African American studies and gender, sexuality and women’s studies from the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences.

Inspired by her VCU experience, she moved from Richmond to Philadelphia, where she earned her master’s degree in urban education studies at Temple University. Picot then pivoted to the mental health field, and as a licensed behavioral specialist in the city, she now is a clinical lead at the Center for Autism, the nation’s oldest autism center. She also has co-authored a book, directed a film about trauma and funded a Black women and girls cycling group in Philadelphia.

Picot said her philosophy reflects her life: The world will open up to you if you see more for yourself.

Read more: https://www.news.vcu.edu/article/meet-a-ram-iresha-picot-makes-a-mark-from-mental-health-to-media-from-self-care-to-cycling

With support from a new three-year, $3 million grant, VCU’s Daniel Gutierrez and a multi-institutional team of researche...
08/28/2026

With support from a new three-year, $3 million grant, VCU’s Daniel Gutierrez and a multi-institutional team of researchers, educators and clinicians are working to help mental health professionals provide spiritually competent care for clients around the globe.

“The long-term goal is to make spiritual and religious competence a routine part of ethical, culturally responsive, whole-person mental health care,” said Gutierrez, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Counseling and Special Education in the School of Education.

Mental health often connects closely to spirituality, religion and concepts of identity, community and meaning, but Gutierrez noted that clinicians often receive little training in how to appropriately address this overlap. In collaboration with international partners and bolstered by the new grant from the John Templeton Foundation, Gutierrez is leading a project designed to address this gap.

Read more: https://www.news.vcu.edu/article/vcus-daniel-gutierrez-receive-3-million-train-mental-health-professionals-spiritually-competent-care

08/28/2026

Sorry, can't talk right now. kind of busy changing the world! 📞🔬

This summer our Rams took the stage at the VCU Honors Undergraduate Research Symposium presenting original research, pushing boundaries, and doing what VCU students do best: proving that different works. 🐏💛

Finding solutions to today’s most consequential societal challenges requires collaboration between disciplines. That mis...
08/27/2026

Finding solutions to today’s most consequential societal challenges requires collaboration between disciplines. That mission is the heartbeat of VCU Convergence, a universitywide commitment to crossing boundaries between research, curriculum and experiential learning.

To stoke the interdisciplinary fires, the VCU Convergence Team Planning Grant Program was established and has awarded $10,000 grants for 15 projects comprising nearly 70 faculty members. The unique funding model is reserved for projects of three or more full-time VCU faculty from at least two different schools or colleges that focus on problems that defy single-discipline solutions.

Read more: https://www.news.vcu.edu/article/vcu-convergence-awards-nearly-70-faculty-members-150000-in-seed-grants

08/27/2026

Heard about the AI model hacking another company but not sure what it means? VCU cybersecurity expert Christopher Whyte, Ph.D., explains why it matters and why it doesn’t mean AI has developed intentions of its own.

🔗 Read more here: https://bit.ly/4zIF6KU

When VCU opened its Saxbys cafe in the Snead Hall atrium Tuesday, it wasn’t just launching a coffee spot and eatery. It ...
08/27/2026

When VCU opened its Saxbys cafe in the Snead Hall atrium Tuesday, it wasn’t just launching a coffee spot and eatery. It was launching a classroom.

While Saxbys offers classic hot and cold brews, creative smoothies and frozen lattes – and food options that include baked goods, breakfast all day and a plethora of grilled cheese sandwiches – it’s also an experiential learning platform.

“Saxbys is an education company disguised as a coffee company,” founder and CEO Nick Bayer said.

Since 2015, Saxbys has built individualized academic partnerships with universities across the Northeast to provide paid, experiential learning opportunities for students. Touted as being “for students, by students,” each cafe is 100% student-run. Saxbys’ only involvement is hiring a student CEO, who then hires the rest of the cafe’s team members.

Read more: https://www.news.vcu.edu/article/vcus-new-saxbys-cafe-is-blending-lattes-with-learning

‘Virginia at 250’ symposium on Sept. 1 features two former governors and leading political analysts.As America commemora...
08/26/2026

‘Virginia at 250’ symposium on Sept. 1 features two former governors and leading political analysts.

As America commemorates its 250th anniversary this year, VCU's L. Douglas Wilder School of Government & Public Affairs and the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences will bring together distinguished leaders and political scholars for a free public symposium – “Virginia at 250: Leadership, Democracy and the Future of Our Commonwealth” – on Tuesday, Sept. 1.

The event, from 5 to 7 p.m., will be held at the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, 922 Park Ave., on VCU’s Monroe Park Campus. Registration is required.

The conversation will feature L. Douglas Wilder, 66th governor of Virginia; Ambassador Jim Gilmore, 68th governor of Virginia and former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Larry Sabato, Ph.D., founder and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics; and Robyn Diehl McDougle, Ph.D., interim dean of the Wilder School and director of the Commonwealth Poll. Political analyst Bob Holsworth, Ph.D., will moderate the discussion.

Read more: https://www.news.vcu.edu/article/virginia-at-250-symposium-on-sept-1-features-two-former-governors-and-leading-political-analysts

More than 1 in 5 American adolescents has obesity — 22.9% of those ages 12 to 19, according to federal survey data, a ra...
08/26/2026

More than 1 in 5 American adolescents has obesity — 22.9% of those ages 12 to 19, according to federal survey data, a rate that has reached record highs for children and teenagers. And while effective treatment exists, is well-studied and is endorsed by national guidelines, almost none of those adolescents will receive it.

The gap between what works and what families can access is the problem a new clinical trial at VCU is working to solve.

Backed by a five-year, $3.85 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the trial tests a model called Virtual Housecalls. The premise is simple to state and unusually difficult to execute: take the intensive lifestyle treatment that ordinarily happens in specialty clinics with long waitlists and deliver it instead through a family’s pediatrician — with most sessions conducted by video, in the home.

Read more: https://www.news.vcu.edu/article/heres-how-vcu-researchers-are-reviving-the-house-call-to-treat-teen-obesity

At every appointment, Mary Helen Hackney, M.D., greeted longtime patient Audrey Landers, Ph.D., with the same question: ...
08/25/2026

At every appointment, Mary Helen Hackney, M.D., greeted longtime patient Audrey Landers, Ph.D., with the same question: “What’s on your worry list today?” Landers was never shy about running through her agenda.

“Patiently, she handles my questions and concerns,” Landers said before her passing in September 2025. “At the end of what are generally long conversations, she gives my husband a hug as she leaves the room. Sometimes I get a hug, too.”

For Hackney, a senior leader in breast cancer treatment, survivorship and risk reduction and a professor in the VCU School of Medicine on the MCV Campus, making time for her patients is a top priority.

“One of the things we’re able to do at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center is not worry about having someone sitting with a stopwatch and saying, ‘You have 10 minutes to see your patients,’” said Hackney, an oncologist who serves as medical director of community oncology at Massey. “Some patients need more time than others, and you’re able to build those relationships.”

Read more: https://www.news.vcu.edu/article/breast-cancer-patient-leaves-a-lasting-legacy-by-honoring-her-compassionate-doctor

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