Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has accepted a part-time teaching post at the University of Richmond after he leaves the Executive Mansion in January. The school announced that Kaine will have a joint appointment in the university’s School of Law and Jepson School of Leadership Studies. He will have additional responsibilities in advancing the university’s strategic plan, The Richmond Promise.

With a smile on her face and pumps on her feet, Virginia first lady Anne Holton accepted the Flame of Hope from Virginia Beach swimmer Max Everton. “This brings together two of my favorite groups—law enforcement and the Special Olympics,“ she said yesterday during an afternoon ceremony outside the state Capitol. After a round of speeches, Everton—flame back in hand—took off with Richmond Police Chief Bryan T. Norwood and Virginia Attorney General Bill Mims with about 50 state law-enforcement officers in tow on the final leg of the weeklong, nearly 2,000-mile Virginia Law Enforcement Torch Relay that kicked off the 2009 Virginia Special Olympics Summer Games.

University of Virginia President John T. Casteen III will retire next summer after 20 years at the helm of one of the nation’s Public Ivies. Calling his time at U.Va. “magical,“ Casteen, 65, told the board of visitors yesterday that he will step down Aug. 1, 2010, and said he is “eager to applaud what comes next.“ Under Casteen’s leadership, the university founded by Thomas Jefferson has consistently ranked at the top of academic standings.

A renewal of the sense of urgency from the civil-rights movement is needed to close the nation’s educational achievement gap, Virginia Union University graduates were told yesterday. “To be sure, education is the new civil-rights agenda,“ Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones told graduates of his alma mater. Fifty-five years after the U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing school segregation, much work still needs to be done to change the paradigm of educational opportunities, he said.

Civil War historians, led by University of Richmond President Edward L. Ayers, will gather April 29 to recount the state of the country two years before the first shots were fired. “America on the Eve of the Civil War,“ which is free and open to the public, will be the first in a series of conferences sponsored by the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission. The General Assembly created the commission to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Virginia’s participation in the war.

The face of the George M. Modlin Center for the Arts has a ready smile, unruly blond curls and a penchant for pink scarves. For 13 years, executive director Kathleen Panoff has led the University of Richmond’s Modlin Center from construction site to the hottest ticket in town, the place where artists and arts patrons alike know they can find innovative programming, reasonable ticket prices and good acoustics. Free parking doesn’t hurt either.

When Richmonders last saw Jocko Garcia, he was playing football at the University of Richmond. Another chance will come tonight at 9 on the television show “Undercover: Double Life” on the Investigation Discovery channel. Joaquin Garcia will be talking about his 26 years as an undercover agent for the FBI. In that time, he was so successful in his persona of Italian jewel thief Jack Falcone that he was sponsored for membership in the notorious Gambino crime family. His infiltration there helped land many of the crime syndicate’s top leaders in jail.

It has been a few years since watching Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” series became a Sunday-night ritual in the residence-hall apartment of a University of Richmond faculty member. The freshman students would gather in David Howson’s Richmond College dwelling to watch the show over pizza and ice cream and discuss its tactics of luring and exposing Internet sexual predators.

The ConnectNetwork will expand and improve with a three-year $240,000 grant. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation recently awarded half the grant, $120,000 to the Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia. The foundation, which operates in partnership with the ConnectNetwork and Virginia Commonwealth University, will match the grant.

As an aspiring biologist, Nancy B. Stutts conducted research in a Venezuelan cloud forest. But after moving to Richmond in 1980, she knew a career in tropical biology wasn’t likely. She shifted her attention to nonprofits and eventually conceived a Web-based networking system that links nonprofit, business, government and civic-minded leaders.

Forty-three Richmond-area teachers will be honored today by Virginia Commonwealth University for achieving certification from the National Board for Professional Teacher Standards. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and VCU President Eugene P. Trani are scheduled to address the teachers from schools in the city of Richmond and the counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico.

In 1999, law professor Robert Edward Shepherd Jr., a national leader and advocate in legal issues affecting children and families, was the first person inducted into the Virginia Juvenile Court Hall of Fame.

Jacob Riis, a social reform journalist who documented inhumane living conditions in New York City tenements in the late 1800s, would be a tough legacy for anyone to live up to. His photos moved Theodore Roosevelt, then a police commissioner, to offer to help. Riis’ granddaughter, Martha Elisabeth Riis Moore, “tried in her own small way,“ said her son, James T. Moore III. SLIDESHOW

The University of Richmond will conduct the first test of its campuswide, outdoor emergency notification system Monday at 1:25 p.m. Installation of the UR Alert Audible Warning System was being completed this week. The work might include some preliminary testing of the system. The system will project alert tones and voice warning messages that can be heard at any outside location on campus.

More than 100 students crammed into a ground-floor room of the Whitehurst building at the University of Richmond to watch last night’s debate. “For a vice presidential debate, the level of interest is amazing,“ said Jennifer Erkulwater, a political science teacher. The debate elicited a few hoots and giggles, notably at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s reference gauging the nation’s economic pulse by going to a hockey game and to her reference to “hockey moms and Joe Six-Packs” uniting to prevent a recurrence of the financial crisis.