• October 27
The Miller Center of Public Affairs breaks ground for the Thompson Pavilion, named for former Miller Center Director Kenneth W. Thompson. The Miller Center also announces a $1.6 million challenge gift which will fund the Scripps Library and Multimedia Archive in the new facility.
• November 2
Celebrating its first decade, the Women's Center brings six winners of its Distinguished Alumna Award back to U.Va. At a discussion moderated by law professor Anne Coughlin, center, are, from left, Vivian Pinn (Medicine '67), director of the National Institutes of Health's Office of Research on Women's Health; Kathryn Thornton (Graduate Arts and Sciences '79), former NASA astronaut and now assistant dean for graduate programs in the School of Engineering and Applied Science; Hanan Ashrawi (Graduate Arts and Sciences '82), founder of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights; Mariann Stratton (Nursing '81), rear admiral, retired, U.S. Navy; Valerie Ackerman (College '81), president of the Women's National Basketball Association; and Elaine Jones (Law '70), director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
• November 2
The Center for Governmental Studies holds the largest Internet mock election in American history, with nearly 37,000 middle and high school students in Virginia casting ballots.
• November 17
With generous support from the Donchian Foundation and John Allen Hollingsworth (College '51), the University establishes the Institute for Practical Ethics. Comprising distinguished ethicists from a number of schools on Grounds, the institute will integrate ethical studies into a broad range of disciplines.
• November 18
The digital capabilities of the School of Architecture are showcased in the exhibition "On the Job: Designing the American Office," which opens at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. It features an eight-minute, computer-generated tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building, created by Earl Mark of the architecture faculty with research associates Eric Field and Duncan Morton and former graduate students Khanh Uong and Seth Peterson. Completed in 1906 in Buffalo, New York, Wright's innovative office building was demolished in 1950.
• December
The Hedgehog Review, pub-lished by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, is selected as the Best New Journal by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.
• December 18
The University Library announces it will receive a bequest of more than 10,000 scholarly books on Buddhism from Stanley and Lucie
Weinstein of Hamden, Connecticut. A professor
of Buddhist studies at Yale, Mr. Weinstein praised the "strong constellation of scholars" at Virginia that has made it "one of the major centers in this country for the serious study of Buddhism."
• December 20
PBS airs "The Measured Century," a documentary based on a book cowritten by Theodore Caplow, Commonwealth Professor of Sociology. It provides an illustrated guide to trends in America from 1900 to 2000.
• December 31
At the stroke of midnight, the Campaign for the University of Virginia officially comes to a close. The total raised: $1.43 billion.
Gerald Fogarty, a Jesuit priest and the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Religious Studies and History, is part of a panel of Jewish and Catholic scholars that submits a report to the Vatican on Pope Pius XII's role in World War II.
• January
Participants in Nursing Students Without Borders return to the University from El Salvador after providing aid in relief efforts following the January 13 earthquake.
Renowned pianist Andre Watts performs to a standing-room-only audience at Old Cabell Hall Auditorium.
Organized by Benjamin Levy (College '01), at right with Mr. Watts, the concert promotes the University's proposed performing arts center.
• February 21–23
Twenty top business students from around the country compete head-to-head in the McIntire School's twentieth annual case competition.
• February 23
Claire Cronmiller, associate professor of biology, and Louise Dudley, assistant vice president for University
relations, receive the Women's Center's annual Elizabeth Zintl Leadership Award in recognition of their service to the University.
• February 28
Forty-three outstanding undergraduate students
win the David A. Harrison III Awards, which support
innovative research projects.
The University Library celebrates the 250th anniversary of the birth of James Madison and his contributions to the University.
• March 6
Civil rights leader Roger Wilkins comes to the University as part of the Explorations in Black Leadership series sponsored by the Institute for Public History and the Darden School.
Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore (College '71, Law '77) comes to the University to unveil the nation's first statewide guiding principles for planning and developing e-communities.
• March 19
Charlottesville City Council approves a community
chalkboard, proposed by the University's Thomas Jefferson Center for Protection of Free Expression as a monument to free speech. The project was conceived by Robert B. Winstead and Peter O'Shea (Architecture '93), a member of the landscape architecture faculty.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency presents its Energy Star Partner of the Year award to Facilities Management for its outstanding commitment to pollution prevention through continuous improvement of the University's energy management practices.
• March 23
Novelist Paule Marshall and feminist philosopher bell hooks speak at the Virginia Festival of the Book.
Governor Gilmore appoints University alumni Thomas F. Farrell II (College '76, Law '79), left, and Thomas A. Saunders III (Darden '67), right, to the University's Board of Visitors. Sasha L. Wilson (College '02) becomes the new student member.
• April
The wait is over for 5,374 high school seniors who receive offers of admission from
the University. Of these, nearly 3,000 will be in the 2001 entering class.
• April 11
At a banquet in the Rotunda, the University recognizes excellence in teaching. Richard Guy Wilson, Commonwealth Professor of Architecture, receives the Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award, and Susan E. Burns, assistant professor of civil engineering, wins the Alumni Board of Trustees Teaching Award. Glenn Beamer, assistant professor of government and foreign affairs; Claire Lyu, assistant professor of French; Anthony Spearing, Kenan Professor of English; Robert Weikle II, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Timothy D. Wilson, professor of psychology, win the All-University Outstanding Teaching Award. Sarah Farrell, assistant professor of nursing, and Cynthia Wall, associate professor of English, are
honored for their teaching
in first-year seminars.
Our Response to a National Crisis
In response to the events of September 11, the University moved quickly to provide emergency information and counseling to students, faculty, and staff, especially to those who were affected directly by the deaths at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. On its Web site, the Alumni Association posted a memorial to alumni who perished in the attacks, and adjacent to Nameless Field, students in the School of Architecture created a place for notes, flowers, and other tributes to those who were lost. As the week unfolded, the University community drew together for comfort and support, gathering at candlelight vigils, memorial services, and teach-ins. A blood drive on the Grounds attracted thousands of donors.
The value of our faculty's expertise on the Middle East and many other relevant topics became abundantly clear, as the media turned to them for insights on issues ranging from the vulnerability of our electronic infrastructure and the likely course of our fight against terrorism to the effects on our economy and immigration policy. Suddenly University research on detecting chemical and biological warfare agents, as well as on treatments for those who are exposed, took on new urgency. In these and other ways, the University is helping the nation ensure our security while safeguarding our way of life and the core principles of a free society.
Faculty and graduate teaching assistants, below, were honored at the Rotunda for their work in the classrooom.
Richard Guy Wilson, below, receives the Distinguished Professor Award from Peter Low, vice president and provost.
On Founder's Day, Australian architect Glenn Murcutt, center, receives the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture. Former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mortimer Caplin (College '37, Law '40), at right, is awarded the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Law. A tree is planted on the Lawn in honor of
Frederick D. Nichols, the late Cary D. Langhorne Professor of Architecture.
• April 12
Katie Couric (College '79),
cohost of Today on NBC, visits the Grounds to shoot
a feature that will air on the morning news program
May 22.
To foster philanthropic support for the University's core liberal arts programs, Arts and Sciences alumni create the College Foundation of the University of Virginia.
The Dave Matthews Band goes back to its roots in a spectacular way, performing a benefit concert before a crowd of more than 50,000 in the newly expanded Scott Stadium.
• May 20
Dr. Francis S. Collins (College '70), top, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, addresses graduates at Final Exercises and offers parting advice with a song he wrote for the occasion. A day earlier, former Yahoo! chairman Timothy
A. Koogle (Engineering '73) speaks at the 2001 Valedictory Exercises.
The restoration of Pavilion VII, the oldest building on the Lawn, is completed. The pavilion is the sixth to be restored and represents the largest and most complex project undertaken since the University began its historic preservation program in 1984. Begun in the fall of 1998, the restoration encompassed the original Jeffersonian structure, an addition dating from the mid-1800s, and a much larger section built early in the twentieth century to provide overnight accommodations for visitors. The project also took in the pavilion's garden, service yard, side alley, and furnishings.
• May
Indiana University Police Chief Paul E. Norris, Jr., is tapped to head the University of Virginia's 133-member Police Department, succeeding Michael Sheffield.
The University establishes a graduate fellowship fund in creative writing named for Edgar Allan Poe and William Faulkner, two celebrated writers long associated with the institution. The fellowship is made possible by a $1.5 million gift from Paul G. Kimball of New York.
• June
Penelope J. Kaiserlian, former associate director and editorial director of the University of Chicago Press, becomes the new director of the University Press of Virginia.
The Fiske Guide to Colleges lists U.Va. as one of its forty-three best buys, citing the University for offering "remarkable educational opportunities at a relatively modest cost."
• July 15
A sixteen-member team of engineering students pilots
a solar-powered car from Chicago to Los Angeles in the American Solar Challenge.
• July 31
The National Commission on Federal Election Reform, organized by the Miller Center of Public Affairs and led by former Presidents Gerald Ford, left, and Jimmy Carter, right, formally presents its findings to President Bush.
• August
Two leading figures in American fiction, Ann Beattie and Christopher Tilghman, join the highly regarded creative writing faculty in the University's English department.
• August 20
Via an international videoconference, below, the University forms an academic partnership with the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.
• August 25
The 2,980 members of the Class of 2005 move into University residence halls
and begin their first year
of college.
• September
Ann Whiteside, former visual resources librarian for the Harvard School of Design, becomes fine arts librarian for the University.
• October 20
R. Edward Howell, director and chief executive officer of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, is named the vice president and chief executive officer for the University of Virginia Medical Center. In this new position, created as part of a reorganization of the University Health System, he will oversee the operation
of the University's hospitals and clinics.