NOVEMBER 1999
• With top Internet alumni returning for a two-day e-summit (above), Charlottesville momentarily replaces the Silicon Valley as capital of the information age. What is in the water in Charlottesville?
• William H. Goodwin Jr., president of CCA Industries of Richmond, and his wife, Alice T. Goodwin, pledge an unprecedented $13.3 million gift to the Darden School. The Goodwins' total financial support to the Darden School exceeds $25 million.
• The School of Nursing proved an excellent springboard for Rebecca Rimel, who returns to Charlottesville as president and CEO of the Pew Charitable Trusts to receive the Women's Center Distinguished Alumna Award.
• Poet, novelist, and essayist George Garrett receives the country's most prestigious poetry prize, the Aiken Taylor Award.
• Leonard W. Sandridge is named Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer with expanded oversight of the Health System's clinical enterprises, including the University Hospital.
• The Templeton Guide: Colleges that Encourage Character Development cites University president John T. Casteen III for his commitment to the intellectual and moral development of students.
DECEMBER 1999
• A full year ahead of schedule, the Campaign for the University of Virginia reaches its $1 billion goal, with nearly 141,000 donors taking part.
• A gift of $800,000 from the Theresa A. Thomas Memorial Foundation pushes the Nursing School over its latest capital campaign target of $10.2 million.
• University alumnus Frank Batten Sr., retired chairman of Landmark Communications Inc., exceeds all expectations by donating $60 million to the Darden School, the single largest gift in the University's history. Shown above are President John T. Casteen III, Mrs. and Mr. Batten, and Darden School Dean Edward A. Snyder.
• Eight faculty members, Robert D. Abbot, Daniel Bluestone, Robert Bruner, Robin Dripps, Reuben Rainey, Daphne Spain, Heather Warren, and Dr. Brian Wispelwey, receive Harrison Fund awards honoring excellence in teaching.
• The end is near!
The library marks the end of the millennium by mounting an exhibit -- Red, White, Blue, and Brimstone -- highlighting the American fascination with the apocalypse
JANUARY 2000
• U.Va. faculty members Rita Dove and Julian Bond address crowds gathered at the Lincoln Memorial as part of the nation's New Year's Eve Celebration 2000.
• The Medical Center is named one of the Top 100 Hospitals in the nation for the second year in a row–and one of only fifteen major teaching hospitals among the highly rated group.
• President Casteen (far right), and area legislators (l to r) Rep. Paul Harris, Rep. Mitchell Van Yahres, and Sen. Emily Couric, convene a joint meeting to discuss legislative issues involving higher education prior to the 2000 legislative session.
• Robert A. Bland, the first black undergraduate to earn a degree from U.Va., returns to address Harambee, an African-American honors program.
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• New York University law professor Derrick Bell highlights Martin Luther King Jr.'s more radical side at U.Va.'s annual celebration of the civil rights leader's birthday.
• The School of Engineering and Applied Science meets its campaign goal of $50 million a year ahead of schedule.
• University president John T. Casteen III receives the first Distinguished Leadership Award given by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools for "visionary leadership."
• The many moods of the American presidency are on display at the Miller Center, which hosts a retrospective of Time magazine photographs of presidents from Roosevelt to Clinton. James A. Baker III opens the exhibit with a public forum.
FEBRUARY 2000
• It was a natural. The Lawn is named to the Top Ten Lawns List by Briggs & Stratton, the world's largest producer of lawn mower engines.
• The University's Division of Continuing Education receives recognition of its new Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies degree program with a new name: the School of Continuing and Professional Studies.
• Dr. Sharon Hostler (above), medical director of the Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center, is awarded the Women's Center's annual Elizabeth Zintl Award for her work in children's health and women's advancement in academic medicine.
• The Bayly Museum spotlights African-American Heritage Month with an exhibit of graphic work by contemporary African-American women.
• Twenty-six outstanding undergraduates receive grants of up to $4,000 as part of the first-ever Harrison Research Awards.
• The Commerce School hosts the 19th International Case Competition, bringing five teams from Canada, Denmark, Australia, Mexico, and the United States to the University Grounds.
• Former First Lady Barbara Bush stumps for students to get involved in politics during an address at the University.
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• William E. Kirwan and Angela E. Oh join University faculty and administrators in Charting Diversity, a conference and yearlong self-study designed to examine our understanding of diversity.
MARCH 2000
• Debbie Ryan scores ACC Coach of the Year honors for the seventh time.
• The Virginia Quarterly Review marks its seventy-fifth anniversary with a book of classic essays and a special spring issue.
• Ethel Kennedy attends the dedication of a bust honoring Robert F. Kennedy. She is joined by law school dean Robert E. Scott.
Gov. James Gilmore names (l to r) Gordon F. Rainey Jr., Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr., and Charles L. Glazer to the Board of Visitors
• With a $1.35 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, U.Va. researchers hope to isolate a gene that could control prostate cancer development.
• Psychologist E. Mavis Hetherington's ground-breaking work on divorce and remarriage is honored in a symposium devoted to her work.
• Celebrated African-American author John Edgar Wideman addresses students as part of a Callaloo-sponsored symposium on his work.
• Twelve nursing students take spring break in El Salvador assisting a Red Cross clinic as part of Nursing Students Without Borders, a new student-run organization.
• Dr. Richard Edlich (below with President Clinton) is honored by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for his work to improve access for people with disabilities.
APRIL 2000
• Janet Reno, speaking at a conference celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the student-edited Virginia Journal of International Law, discusses the Elian Gonzalez case.
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• Judge Guido Calabresi and U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan receive Thomas Jefferson medals in law and architecture on Founder's Day.
• A tree is planted in honor of Mrs. Marian Lee Stuart Cochran (shown with President Casteen).
• U.S. News & World Report ranks four University schools in the top twenty: law (8th), commerce (8th), Darden (11th), and Curry (19th).
• Cybercafe opens at Alderman Library, enabling students to enjoy a cup of java while surfing the Web.
• U.Va. soars in the Yahoo! Internet Life magazine rankings of wired universities, moving from thirty-fourth last year to eighth this year.
• William Styron, one of America's foremost novelists, reads from his novels at the University Bookstore as part of a joint project of the Library of Virginia, the Library of Virginia Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Book intended to foster a renewed interest in reading across the Commonwealth.
• Acclaimed poet James Tate visits the Grounds as the Rea Visiting Writer in Poetry.
• U.Va. researchers receive nearly $1 million to study the link between diabetes and heart disease.
• Former NBA star Magic Johnson speaks to students at UHall about setting and achieving goals.
• The Miller Center gives its Presidential Award for Public Service to Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham.
MAY 2000
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• Nasdaq president Alfred R. Berkeley III (Col '66) (top) and CBS news correspondent Andy Rooney speak at Final Exercises. More than 30,000 students and family members gather on the Lawn for U.Va.'s 171st graduation. The ceremonies are Webcast live on Yahoo!
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• The University finalizes plans for a third residential college to focus on international studies. In February, the board approved the $7 million project to house Russian, German, and Asian language houses.
• In his annual State of the University Address, President Casteen outlines a new arts precinct plan that includes a 1,500 seat concert hall, a studio art building, and a new larger building for the Bayly Art Museum.
• U.Va. Patent Foundation names biochemist Ronald P. Taylor the Christopher J. Henderson Inventor of the Year.
• After twenty-five years in the registrar's office, University Registrar Ann Antrobus retires. In July, Carol Stanley arrives from Drexel University as the new registrar.
JULY 2000
• The Board of Visitors approves a $1.26 billion operating budget for 2000-01. Due to the stellar performance of the University endowment portfolio in fiscal year 1999-00, the Board of Visitors increases the distribution of this year's income by 30 percent, giving school deans an additional $13.6 million to devote to academic programs.
• Art finds a place in the landscape at the University and in surrounding counties as part of the Bayly Art Museum's special exhibition, "Hindsight/Fore-site: Art for the New Millennium."
• The University breaks ground for a four-story, 45,000-square-foot addition to Clark Hall, creating additional laboratory space for the environmental sciences department and modernizing the Science and Engineering Library.
• A $3.5 million bequest from Florence Farrow supports cancer research and the Health Sciences Library collection. This gift is the largest ever for medical research from an individual.
• Medical care at U.Va. has never been better, as eleven medical specialties at U.Va.'s Medical Center are ranked in the top fifty in U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Hospitals guide.
• U.Va. receives a trove of four hundred rare documents and artifacts from the estate of philanthropist Paul Mellon, including an 1855 lithograph of Perry's expedition to Japan, held by Special Collections staff Gayle Cooper and Edward Gaynor.
• The National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the W. Alton Jones Foundation give the Miller Center $200,000 in grants to transcribe and publish all the secret White House tapes made from the Roosevelt to the Nixon administrations.
AUGUST 2000
• The University of Virginia regains its place as the best public university in the nation, tying with the University of California at Berkeley for top honors in U.S. News & World Report's newest rankings.
• Overall, the University ranks twentieth among all national institutions, public and private. The magazine also puts U.Va. first among publics in the Best Value category. The University of Virginia's College at Wise is named the number two public college in the South for the second consecutive year.
• Boxwoods obscuring the Rotunda are taken down to provide better views of the historic building and are replaced with smaller plantings.
• The NIH awards U.Va. researchers $5 million to study Crohn's disease.
• An award of $1.9 million from an anonymous donor fuels innovation at the Curry School's Center for Technology and Teacher Education and carries the school past its $14.3 million Capital Campaign goal.
• The University donates surplus computers to local public schools and nonprofits, thanks to a new state law that enables state agencies to donate a percentage of their used property.
• The University Library makes 1,200 texts–including the Bible, works by Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Jefferson, and Twain–available online to the general public as free downloads.
• Nearly 3,000 first-year students move into residence halls and enter life as the Class of 2004. Twenty-nine percent of the new undergraduates were in the top 1 percent of their class.
• The University launches a program to distribute free personal computers to entering students with special academic and financial needs.
• U.Va. Library's Geostat Center posts historic maps of Charlottesville online, showing the city as it looked in 1920.
SEPTEMBER 2000
• The Cavaliers open their 111th season against Brigham Young in the dedication game at the newly expanded Carl Smith Center, home of David A. Harrison Field at Scott Stadium. Some 61,000 fans fill the stands, the largest crowd ever to assemble for a college game in Virginia.
• The University of Virginia School of Medicine receives $20 million for prostate cancer research from the estate of the late Paul Mellon. This is the largest gift in the medical school's history and the fourth largest for the University.
• Current student and swimmer Ed Moses (above, left) and former women's basketball player Dawn Staley (above, right) join eight other current or former U.Va. athletes competing in the Olympics in Australia. Breaststroke specialist Moses brings home silver and gold medals and Staley, a member of the 2000 U.S. Women's squad, brings home team gold.
• The Faculty Senate's annual retreat addresses enhancing the University's excellence through diversity.
• Student groups bring speakers to the University throughout the fall, including Gloria Steinem and Ralph Nader for perspectives on feminism and Green Party politics.
• Explorations in Black Leadership, an oral history project cosponsored by the University's Institute for Public History and the Darden School, kicks off with a discussion by history professor Julian Bond (left) and civil rights lawyer Henry Marsh.
OCTOBER 2000
• Electronics expert Vicki Coleman takes over as the new director of Clemons Library.
• L. Jay Lemons, Chancellor of U.Va.-Wise since 1992, announces his departure in 2001 for the presidency of Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania.
• Moody's Investors Service, one of the world's leading credit rating companies, upgrades the University's rating to "a gilt edged" Aaa, making U.Va. one of only three public universities in the nation so ranked.
• Cornel West, Harvard professor and author of Race Matters, speaks to a standing-room only group on race relations in America at Old Cabell Hall.
• A study by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia shows that U.Va. tops the list of graduation rates of state colleges and universities, with a 91.3 percent graduation rate within six years.
• David T. Gies, former president of the Faculty Senate and professor of Spanish, is awarded the University's highest honor, the Thomas Jefferson Award, at Fall Convocation Ceremonies. The award cites Gies's scholarship and involvement in University life.
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• Halsey M. Minor (Col ‘87), founder and chairman of CNET Inc., gives the University $25 million to integrate digital technology with the humanities and social sciences in arts and sciences. This is the largest gift arts and sciences has received.
• The University joins local constituencies to open the Connected Community Technology Center, providing technology outreach and training programs for area residents.