The heart of an institution is its people, and the quality of the
of the Center for
Science Education
University's faculty and student body is a sure indication of the level of accomplishment we have come to expect. In recent years, we have highlighted exceptional faculty, devoted teachers, and scholars of international stature such as architecture dean William McDonough, education theorist E. D. Hirsch, Jr., philosopher Richard Rorty, former poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove, resident diplomat and former ambassador to Kuwait W. Nathaniel Howell, and historian and civil rights leader Julian Bond.
The University is intent on retaining a faculty of this distinction. Accordingly, the University designated a $300,000 portion of unrestricted funds given by Campaign Executive Committee member David A. Harrison, III (Col '39, Law '41), of Hopewell, Va., to provide onetime bonuses for approximately eighty faculty members who have excelled in their teaching this year.
Women and men of the highest caliber continue to join us. This year, Dr. Leland Chung, generally regarded as one of the best cancer scientists in the world, moved his laboratory to the University of Virginia from the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Dr. Chung is reported to be one or two years away from testing a prostate cancer vaccine on humans. His work, supported by $8.4 million in research grants, has implications for treating or preventing other fixed site cancers.
admission Mike
Mallory has been
tapped to lead the
Ron Brown Memorial
Scholarship Fund.
Also this year, NASA astronaut and University alumna Kathryn Thornton (Grad '77, '79) accepted a professorship in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. She has been named director of the Center for Science Education, an interdisciplinary project created to promote greater interest in the sciences among elementary and secondary school students. Thornton, who has logged a total of more than six weeks in space, including twenty-one hours of space walking, most recently served as the payload commander of the Space Shuttle Columbia.
A leader in medical education, Dr. William Knaus came to the University from the George Washington University School of Medicine to head the newly formed Department of Health Evaluation Sciences. With his arrival, the department instantly became a pacesetter in developing systems to measure the outcomes and effectiveness of medical treatment, a critical element in the national campaign to improve health care while reducing costs.
Led by chair Paula McClain, the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs brought the Ralph Bunche Institute to the University for the first time this summer. Named for Ralph Bunche, the first African-American to receive a doctorate in political science, the Institute gives promising African-American political science majors the opportunity to explore the potential rewards of an academic career. The institute takes up residence at a different college or university every three years. It will be held at the University of Virginia for the next two summers under the direction of government professor Steve Finkel.
Although the University is proud of the initiative and leadership of its faculty, the lifeblood of the institution remains its students. More than 17,300 students applied for just 2,800 openings in the class of 2000. The result: one of the most superbly prepared groups of students ever. Approximately 79 percent were in the top 10 percent of their high school class, while three students earned perfect scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests. The class of 2000 is also distinguished by having a record international enrollment. Ninety students who set their sights on U.Va., including young men and women from South Korea, India, Turkey, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, are pursuing their dream in Charlottesville. They join a multicultural student body notable for its intellectual accomplishments, range of interests, and initiative.
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On the Reading List Cecil Lang sheds new light on the life of a major Victorian poet and his era through the multivolume work The Letters of Matthew Arnold. This compilation contains all of the known letters of Matthew Arnold, based on Lang's twenty years of intense research. Dirty Little Secrets, by nationally renowned political scientist Larry J. Sabato and Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn R. Simpson, was particularly timely in an election year. Sabato and Simpson link the rise of cynicism among the U.S. electorate to the persistence of corruption in American politics. In Theorizing for a New Agenda for Architecture, assistant professor Kate Nesbitt brought together the most significant essays on architecture written in the last thirty years. Associate professor Edward R. Ford published the second volume of his landmark study, The Details of Modern Architecture.
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THE ABLEST FACULTY THE NATION CAN FURNISH
The success of the educational mission depends on distinguished teachers. Jefferson wrote in 1819 that "no secondary character will be received" among the University of Virginia faculty and insisted that "only the ablest which America or Europe can furnish" would teach here, or "none at all."
The awards and honors of national significance bestowed on our faculty this year confirm the University's continued progress.
This year, the National Academy of Engineering elected George Hornberger, the Ernest H. Ern Professor of Environmental Sciences, to its membership. Hornberger joins seven other U.Va. faculty members in this prestigious institution, among them William Wulf, the AT&T Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, who has been selected its president.
Rita Dove, Commonwealth Professor of English, and Patricia Meyer Spacks, the E. F. Shannon Professor of English, were elected to the American Philosophical Society, our nation's oldest learned society and one whose members have won 226 Nobel Prizes over the years. Two arts and sciences professors -- J. David Summers, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of History of Art, and Robert Louis Wilken, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity -- were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which was founded in 1780 by John Adams.
Supernova expert Roger A. Chevalier, the W. H. Vanderbilt Professor of Astronomy, received two awards this spring. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and won the 1996 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics for outstanding work in the field.
In an award that underscores the emphasis the University places on preserving its architectural heritage, James Murray Howard, curator and architect for the University's historic buildings, was chosen as a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, his profession's highest honor.
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Three former University presidents, Robert M. O'Neil, Edgar F. Shannon, and Frank L. Hereford, and current president John T. Casteen, III, joined political science professor Larry Sabato (center) for personal reflections on their tenures and the emergence of the University as a national institution. |
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AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR PROFESSION
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Another faculty invention is the Burns Wean Assessment Program, a software program devised by associate professor of nursing Suzanne Burns (above, right). Designed to determine if intensive care patients are ready to be weaned from mechanical ventilators, this program is now in use at more than thirty hospitals around the nation. In addition to benefiting society, a major share of royalty income generated by the U.Va. Patent Foundation is returned to the inventors' laboratories to fund additional research. When inventions generate unusually large royalties, a share of these revenues is placed in the Scholarly Activities Fund, which supports laboratory research as well as summer grants in the social sciences and the humanities. |
Developing the expertise and insight needed to contribute to the well-being of society requires years of dedication and hard work. The prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation scholarships are awarded to promising scholars who have undertaken intellectually challenging research leading to significant advances in their field. This year, Karen V. H. Parshall, an associate professor of history and mathematics, and David Vander Meulen, an associate professor of English, were among the 158 artists, scholars, and scientists nationwide to receive a Guggenheim.
Other members of our faculty who have already attained high levels of professional achievement are routinely singled out for honor or unusual responsibility. Dr. Sharon Hostler, the McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics, chief of developmental pediatrics, and medical director of the Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center, is one such example. This year, Dr. Hostler received the T. Berry Brazelton Lecture Award, the highest academic honor from the Association for the Care of Children's Health.
James F. Childress, the Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Religious Studies and professor of medical education, has earned an international reputation for his writings on euthanasia and access to health care. He was recently selected to a national advisory panel on biomedical ethics by President Bill Clinton. Among the issues the panel is addressing are rights, dignity, and the welfare of human subjects of medical research.
MASTERS OF THE ART OF TEACHING
Jefferson sought professors for his University who would combine "the first degree of eminence in science" with "the talent of communicating his knowledge with facility." This is an apt description of K. Edward Lay, the Cary D.
Childress
Langhorne Professor of Architecture, and Jennings L. Wagoner, Jr., the Parrish Professor of Education. They were co-winners of the Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award, given to a faculty member who has excelled as a teacher, shown unusual concern for students, and made significant contributions to University life for at least a decade.
In accepting his award, Wagoner described the motivations of many faculty: "I teach because I want to associate with people who are driven by the excitement of discovery, who revere what is noble and best in our character as individuals and as a nation, and who want to pass that excitement and passion on to young people."
Another exemplary University teacher was Raymond C. Bice, Jr., whose popular Psychology 101 course had drawn a total of 28,000 students by the time he retired from teaching last year. Michael Kubovy, professor of psychology, and Maite Brandt-Pearce, assistant professor of electrical engineering, taught the course this year and adapted Bice's colorful teaching methods to the electronic age. They developed a computerized system that allows teachers to collect, analyze, and graph data instantaneously in the classroom.
