University of Arizona in the News

The barriers working moms face providing breast milk to their babies made headlines during the recent NCAA tournament when University of Arizona women's basketball coach Adia Barnes had to pump milk at halftime, and other nursing mothers had to choose between bringing their infants to the COVID-19 restricted competition, or taking members of their staffs. "They have to warm up the bottle with the heat packs that are here on the sideline," said ESPN reporter Holly Rowe, speaking about Barnes' multiple responsibilities during games.

University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins discusses the university's role as an economic driver and workforce developer.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft completed its last flyover of Bennu yesterday. The mission team will have to wait a few more days to find out how the spacecraft changed the surface of Bennu when it grabbed a sample of the asteroid.

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami offers a collection of imaginative short stories with skewed elements. In this story collection, Murakami continues his partnership with University of Arizona professor Philip Gabriel, one of Murakami's preferred translators.

Athlete Ally, an advocacy group for LGBTQ equality in sports that grades Division I athletic departments' policies and practices, is raising awareness about inclusion of transgender athletes. The group released its third Athlete Equality Index today, which rates the policies of all 353 institutions in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and how they treat LGBTQ students.

Aari McDonald carried No. 3 seed Arizona to the NCAA tournament final against top-seeded Stanford, beating UConn in the semifinal. "The world is finally noticing what I can do," she said.

Jennifer Carlson, an associate professor in the School of Sociology in the University of Arizona College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, writes about common myths that surround gun ownership.

The Global Vaccine Poem, a collaboration between the University of Arizona Poetry Center the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University, aims to create meaning from hardship, spread vaccine awareness and build on Wick's Traveling Stanzas project that fuses poetry with everyday life.

Experts say side effects from COVID-19 vaccines won't last long and they are actually proof that your immune system is working the way it's supposed to. "With the first dose, you are having to generate an immune response from the ground up," said Michael Worobey, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. The body produces antibodies, but also starts to generate immune cells called B cells to make targeted antibodies – and that takes time, Worobey said.

As states expand coronavirus vaccine eligibility to include younger adults, universities are planning to inoculate students to make it safer to reopen fully by the fall.  The University of Arizona is on track to vaccinate its student body and will open appointments on Friday mornings. New, wider, eligibility guidelines in the state will allow the university to get closer to its goal of vaccinating every student before the semester ends. The university has distributed more than 80,000 doses of the vaccine at its state-run site.