OCTOBER

• Thanks to a $1 million federal grant, the Curry School of Education establishes an online distance learning program for gifted disadvantaged students. 

  

• National Geographic publishes Garry Wills' Mr. Jefferson's University, bringing renewed attention to the University's history and architecture.

• 

  Marva Barnett, director of the Teaching Resource Center, receives the Elizabeth Zintl Leadership Award from the Women's Center.
• Janet Graham-Borba (College '79), vice president of production for HBO, delivers the Women's Center's Jill T. Rinehart Leadership Lecture.

• 

  At Fall Convocation, James F. Childress, the John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics, receives a standing ovation as he accepts the University's highest honor, the Thomas Jefferson Award. Janine Jagger (Graduate Arts & Sciences '87), the Becton Dickinson Professor of Health Care Worker Safety and winner of a 2002 MacArthur Fellowship, delivers the convocation address.
• Civil rights veteran and Washington insider Vernon Jordan speaks about his new book, Vernon Can Read.

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 NOVEMBER

• With a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the University Health System launches a partial liver transplant program.

•  Cardio-XXI, an interactive course offered by the Office of International Health, brings twenty-six Italian physicians to the Grounds to gain insights into the American style of practicing cardiology. They are among nearly 100 doctors from abroad who came to U.Va. in 2002 to learn the latest treatment strategies.

  

• Jerome McGann, the John Stewart Bryan Professor of English and a leader in the use of technology to study literature, is one of five American scholars to win a $1.5 million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award in the humanities. He also receives the Modern Language Association's James Russell Lowell Prize for his book Radiant Textuality: Literature after the World Wide Web
• Michael Mann, assistant professor of environmental sciences and a noted authority on global climate change, is cited by Scientific American as one of the top fifty visionaries "whose recent accomplishments point toward a brighter technological future.

• In the inaugural Levinson Lectures on Religion, Culture, and Social Theory, former French prime minister Lionel Jospin joins Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington and noted journalist Robert D. Kaplan to discuss "America in the World."
• The Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and African Studies receives a $300,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to establish a new center focusing on local knowledge as it relates to race, gender, and nationhood.

DECEMBER

• Louise Dudley, assistant vice president for University Relations, retires after twelve years as University spokeswoman.

  

• For his work addressing alcohol- and drug-abuse problems among students, President John T. Casteen III receives the first Presidents Leadership Group Award from the Department of Education.
• John Monahan, the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation Professor of Law, receives a $3.9 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for a program focusing on mentally ill patients whom the courts instruct to obtain community-based treatment.

• To educate students about the Honor System, the Honor Committee produces a CD-ROM for all first-year and transfer students.
• The University of Virginia Medical Center is recognized by Solucient as one of the nation's top 100 hospitals.

JANUARY

• Barbara Brodie, the Madge M. Jones Professor of Nursing, and Daniel Hallahan, professor of education, are among the ten winners of the Commonwealth of Virginia's Outstanding Faculty awards.
• In conjunction with Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, former Freedom Rider Diane Nash comes to the Grounds to discuss the importance of committed leadership.
• Philip Zelikow, director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs, is appointed executive director of the independent, bipartisan federal 9/11 commission.

FEBRUARY 

• 

  After five years of presiding over the Board of Visitors, John P. "Jack" Ackerly III (College '57, Law '60) ends his term as the thirty-sixth rector of the University.
• Michael Menaker, Commonwealth Professor of Biology and an expert on circadian rhythms, is named one of Virginia's six top scientists for 2003 by Gov. Mark R. Warner.

• 

  Tim Koogle (Engineering '73), former chairman and CEO of Yahoo!, visits the Grounds as a resident scholar and gives lectures at the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the McIntire School of Commerce, and the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, where he promotes the value of "disruptive innovation.

• Standard & Poor's awards the University its AAA debt rating, making it one of only two public universities in the country to hold the top debt ranking from all three major bond-rating agencies.

MARCH

• Writers Nikki Giovanni, John Grisham, and Donald Westlake join U.Va. faculty members Rita Dove, Gregory Orr, Charles Wright, and Ann Beattie at the Virginia Festival of the Book.

  

• Gov. Mark R. Warner appoints Susan Y. "Syd" Dorsey (Architecture '82, Darden '87), Georgia M. Willis (McIntire '83), John O. Wynne (Law '71), and L. F. Payne, Jr. (Darden '73), to the Board of Visitors.
• The University Art Museum displays twelve newly acquired works by twentieth-century American artist Joseph Cornell.
• Dr. Sydney Anne Rice succeeds Dr. Sharon Hostler as medical director of the Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center.
• Twelve works by Joseph Cornell are received from the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.

• Gordon F. Rainey, Jr. (College '62, Law '67), of Richmond is elected the thirty-seventh rector of the University.

APRIL

• The McIntire School of Commerce kicks off its "Back to the Lawn" campaign, a $50 million effort to renovate Rouss Hall and to construct a 115,000-square-foot addition to the historic building.

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  Lawton Fitt (Darden '79), the first American to head the Royal Academy of the Arts in London, receives the 2003 Distinguished Alumna Award from the University's Women's Center.
• In the wake of racial incidents involving students, President Casteen creates the President's Commission on Diversity and Equity, and the Board of Visitors creates a special committee on diversity chaired by board member Warren M. Thompson (Darden '83).
• Bobbie Nau and John L. Nau III (College '68) make an $8.5 million commitment for a new history building, part of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences' South Lawn Project.

• 

  Husband-and-wife team Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, designers of the University's Hereford College, share the 2003 Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture. Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy receives the Thomas Jeffers

• 

  Hunter Smith and Carl W. Smith (College '51) make a $22 million challenge gift toward a $47 million performing arts center, part of the Arts Grounds. The Charlottesville couple also provides $1.5 million for a new marching and concert band.
• Icon of American dance Bill T. Jones gives a lecture and demonstration at the Culbreth Theatre.
  
  
  MAY

• Mary McAleese, president of Ireland, visits the University as part of an international conference titled "Reimagining Ireland" sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

• 

  Dr. L. D. Britt (College '72), chair of surgery at Eastern Virginia Medical School, speaks at Class Valediction. The University's Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award goes to fourth-year students Michelle Morse and Andrew Bond and to Sylvia Terry (Graduate Arts and Sciences '72) associate dean and director of the Peer Adviser Program in the Office of African-American Affairs.

• 

  

  Mortimer Caplin (College '37, Law '40), past member of the Board of Visitors and commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service during the Kennedy administration, addresses rain-soaked graduates and their families at Final Exercises.
• The men's lacrosse team beats Johns Hopkins to capture the NCAA Division I championship.
• The University's International Center turns 30 and is renamed in memory of former director Lorna Sundberg.

• 

  Princeton Nobel laureate Eric Wieschaus is keynote speaker for a symposium launching the Morphogenesis and Regenerative Medicine Institute.
• Sports Illustrated names Director of Athletics Craig Littlepage to its list of the 101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports.

  

• The University breaks ground for a 15,000-seat arena and names it for John Paul Jones (Law '48), the father of the project's chief benefactor, Paul Tudor Jones II (College '76). In April it was announced that Mr. Jones had made a new pledge of $15 million, bringing his total support to more than $35 million for the arena. Board of Visitors member William H. Goodwin, Jr. (Darden '66), and his wife, Alice, also committed $5 million to advance the project.
• The University breaks ground for a 15,000-seat arena and names it for John Paul Jones (Law '48), the father of the project's chief benefactor, Paul Tudor Jones II (College '76). In April it was announced that Mr. Jones had made a new pledge of $15 million, bringing his total support to more than $35 million for the arena. Board of Visitors member William H. Goodwin, Jr. (Darden '66), and his wife, Alice, also committed $5 million to advance the project.
• For her research on alternative therapies to combat pain, Ann Gill Taylor, the Betty Norman Norris Professor of Nursing, receives the 2003 Distinguished Nurse Award from the Beta Kappa chapter of the nation's only nursing honor society, Sigma Theta Tau International.

JUNE

• The University of Virginia Patent Foundation confers its Edlich-Henderson Inventor of the Year Award on microbiologists William Petri and Barbara Mann, developers of an inexpensive test for amoebiasis, an intestinal infection that is a leading cause of death in children in developing countries.

• 

  Dr. R. Ariel Gomez, the Robert J. Roberts Professor of Pediatrics, is named vice president for research and graduate studies.
• The Medical Center introduces the state's first PET-CT scanner, which is capable of detecting tumors earlier than other technology.

• ​Fourteen-year-old prodigy Gregory R. Smith decides to pursue a Ph.D. degree in mathematics at the University.
• Theodore Genoways (Graduate Arts & Sciences '99) succeeds the late Staige Blackford (College '52) as editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review.

JULY

• President Casteen assumes the chairmanship of the Association of American Universities, the organization of the nation's premier research universities.The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention announces that President Casteen is one of nine university presidents selected to serve in its Presidents Leadership Group.

• 

  Volunteers from the University's medicalstaff travel to Wise, Virginia, to treat almost 5,000 patients at the three-day Remote Area Medical Clinic.
• Susan Allen, former first lady of Virginia, cuts the ribbon opening the new Breast Care Center, which consolidates services that had been scattered throughout the University Hospital.

AUGUST

• A record 3,100 first-year students, two-thirds from Virginia, move into the residence halls. With an average combined SAT score of 1,323, they were selected from 14,700 applicants.

• 

  William E. Pease, associate band director at Western Michigan University, is named director of U.Va.'s new concert and marching band.
• Tied with the University of California, Berkeley, U.Va. regains its No. 1 position among public institutions in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. The University moves up to twenty-first overall.
• U.S. News ranks the University of Virginia's College at Wise at eighth among the nation's top liberal arts colleges, up from ninth last year. The news follows the school's announcement that it received federal funding and a

  

  gift from the Commonwealth Foundations totaling nearly $130,000 to study the feasibility of adding new programs in computer science, technology, and engineering.
• A new graduate student orientation program makes it's debut and is well received by entering graduate students and their families.

SEPTEMBER

• The School of Medicine becomes part of a biodefense and infectious diseases initiative funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The grant supports research on such diseases as anthrax, tularemia, cryptosporidia, and pox virus.

  

• The University fills three key administrative posts. J. Milton Adams (College '73, Engineering '76), an associate dean in the Engineering School, will serve as vice provost for academic programs; Gertrude Fraser, associate professor of anthropology, will become vice provost for faculty advancement; and Dr. Leigh Grossman, professor of pediatrics and chief of the division of pediatric infectious disease, will be vice provost for international affairs.
• The University's pioneering Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities celebrates its tenth anniversary.