October

Newsweek names the University of Virginia "Hottest for Fitness." An estimated 94 percent of the University's undergraduates participate in intramural sports or use recreational facilities, which include four indoor recreation centers.

Nobel Prize-winning biological chemist Peter Agre of the Johns Hopkins University kicks off the University's new Nobel laureate lecture series with a presentation on his research.

Robert E. Scott, the Mary and David Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law and the former dean of the School of Law, receives the Thomas Jefferson Award, the University's highest honor.

The Large Binocular Telescope, the most powerful optical telescope ever built, is dedicated on Mt. Graham near Safford, Arizona. As a member of the consortium behind the project, the University is guaranteed time on several major telescopes around the world. Part of a $10 million gift from Frank Levinson (Graduate Arts and Sciences '78, '80) and Wynnette LaBrosse made the University's participation possible.

Ann Lee Brown, wife of the late Charles L. Brown (Engineering '43), gives $10.5 million to the University to endow the Charles L. Brown Science and Engineering Library, the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Charles L. Brown Memorial Jefferson Scholarship. Mr. Brown, who died in 2003, was the former chairman and CEO of AT&T.

Ann Lee Brown, wife of the late Charles L. Brown (Engineering '43), gives $10.5 million to the University to endow the Charles L. Brown Science and Engineering Library, the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Charles L. Brown Memorial Jefferson Scholarship. Mr. Brown, who died in 2003, was the former chairman and CEO of AT&T.

University Librarian Karin Wittenborg receives the Women's Center's 2004 Elizabeth Zintl Leadership Award in recognition of her role in transforming the library, including the adoption of digital technology and the recent expansion of its special collections facilities.

A record 11,074 cinema fans attend the seventeenth Virginia Film Festival. Arranged around the theme of "Speed," the festival attracted such stars as Virginia native Sandra Bullock, who received the Virginia Film Award. She spent an hour talking with drama students and presented a sneak preview of her new film, Miss Congeniality 2.

The Youth Leadership Initiative at the Center for Politics holds its first nationwide, student-only, on-line presidential mock election, in which nearly 1 million students cast votes for U.S.

November

Governor Mark Warner convenes the Governor's Summit on Healthy Virginians at the University. The two-day conference draws participants from throughout the Commonwealth.

A rare first printing of the Declaration of Independence, produced July 4, 1776, goes on display at the newly opened Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. It is part of a permanent exhibition highlighting the extraordinary collection of letters, documents, and early editions of the Declaration given by Albert Small (Engineering '46), a former member of the Board of Visitors and a longtime benefactor of the University Library.

The Miller Center of Public Affairs announces a $2 million unrestricted gift from John and Rosemary Galbraith. Mr. Galbraith, the former president of Templeton Funds Management, serves on the center's Governing Council.

With funding from Microsoft Corporation, the Curry School of Education and the Miller Center of Public Affairs host a conference looking back at the impact of the 1989 Education Summit, convened at the University by President George H. W. Bush. U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, Governor Mark Warner, and former governors and national secretaries of education Richard Riley and Lamar Alexander gather to reflect on the state of education fifteen years after the event.

David C. Walentas (Engineering '61, Darden '64), president of Two Trees Management Company in New York, makes a $1 million commitment to fund the David C. Walentas Jefferson Scholarship. In June he will make another $1 million gift to create scholarships in the Darden School of Business.

The University of Virginia Medical Center opens fourteen new operating rooms that include Smart OR technology and a Laminar Airflow system that creates a germ-free barrier around the patient. The new rooms are part of a four-year project to expand the hospital's surgical capabilities.

Meghan Sullivan (College '05) and Justin Mutter (College '03) are named Rhodes Scholars, marking the seventh time the University has produced two Rhodes winners in the same year.

December

Jeffrey T. Neal (McIntire '85) commits $1 million to the "Back to the Lawn" project, the McIntire School of Commerce's effort to renovate its former home, Rouss Hall, and construct a 132,000-square-foot adjoining building.

Christopher J. Brightman, chief investment officer of the Arlington-based Strategic Investment Group, is named president of the University of Virginia Investment Management Company, which oversees the University's pooled endowment.

The Miller Center of Public Affairs announces plans to record an oral history of the life and career of Senator Edward M. Kennedy (Law '59), which will include the senator's insights into the presidency of his brother, John F. Kennedy. A $3.25 million commitment from Senator Kennedy and the Edward M. Kennedy Center will help fund the work. The Miller Center has completed an oral history of President Jimmy Carter and is completing similar projects for presidents George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton.

Thanks to the University of Virginia Medical Center and the nonprofit Freedom Calls Foundation, family members of the men and women serving in Iraq exchange virtual holiday greetings using the University's teleconferencing equipment, normally used by physicians to examine patients living across the state.

A Window on America The Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature, and Culture opens with two exhibitions, "Flowerdew Hundred: Unearthing Virginia's History" and "American Journeys: Columbus to Kerouac." The Harrison Institute was designed to share the University Library's rich resources with a wider audience through lectures, exhibits, and special programs.

 

January

The University's inaugural January Term offers fourteen courses, including an anthropology research seminar in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, and study-abroad opportunities in Italy and Spain. Some 266 students participate in the "J-term," which will be expanded the following year to more than thirty courses.

Fourth-year engineering student Markus A. Weisner wins the prestigious George J. Mitchell Scholarship to live and study for a year in Ireland.

February

Productive Partnerships As it continues to expand its public outreach programs, the University has launched several initiatives in collaboration with other institutions and agencies in the Commonwealth. With a five-year, $14.5 million grant from the Department of the Navy, the School of Continuing and Professional Studies is working jointly with Virginia State University to offer executive education programs for the Naval Air Systems Command. SCPS is also working with Tidewater Community College to offer the bachelor of interdisciplinary studies degree to adult learners in the region. The new program, which drew twenty-four participants its first year, marks the first time working adults can pursue a University baccalaureate degree outside of Charlottesville. The school also has entered a partnership with twelve school districts around the state to provide leadership development for current and prospective school principals.

Larry J. Sabato, the Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs and director of the Center for Politics, gives $1 million to the University, fulfilling a pledge made to University President Edgar F. Shannon, Jr., in 1974, when Prof. Sabato was a fourth-year student.

The Virginia General Assembly passes the Restructured Higher Education Financial and Administrative Operations Act (originally known as the Charter proposal), which will give Virginia's sixteen public colleges and universities greater authority over key administrative functions.

R. Edward Freeman, the Elis and Signe Olsson Professor of Business Administration, is one of twelve faculty members in the Commonwealth to win an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, delivers the keynote speech for the Conference on Public Service and the Law, an annual event organized by students in the School of Law.

The Board of Visitors welcomes three new members (from left to right), former state Delegate Alan A. Diamonstein (McIntire '55, Law '59) of Newport News, A. Macdonald Caputo (College '63, Law '66) of New York, and Vincent J. Mastracco, Jr. (College '61), of Norfolk. Catherine Neale (College '06) joined the board as its student member.

The School of Continuing and Professional Studies marks its fifth year as the University's tenth academic school. The school enrolled more than 15,300 adult students through its regional centers around the Commonwealth in 2004-05.

Musawer M. Ijaz (College '83), chairman of a New York investment firm and a member of the College Foundation board, pledges $1 million to create the Ijaz Graduate Fellowship Fund for Arts and Sciences. The Lubna Ijaz Fellowship and Mujaddid Ijaz Fellowship, named for his mother and father, will be the first of the fellowships named in recognition of Ijaz family members.

March

Governor Mark Warner joins President John T. Casteen III in announcing the creation of VORTEX, a broadband fiber-optic network that will connect Virginia's universities to next-generation, high-performance networks such as National LambdaRail. VORTEX will handle more data at higher speeds than current Internet technology.

For the first time in its five-year existence, the Virginia Indian Nations Summit on Higher Education is held at the University. Participants discuss Virginia Indians 101, a new curriculum taught by members of Virginia's Indian tribes.

April

In recognition of his humanitarian efforts and his innovative use of building materials, Japanese architect Shigeru Ban receives the fortieth annual Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture on Founder's Day. Judge Patricia M. Wald, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, receives the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law. She was one of the legal experts who examined the statute of the Iraqi Special Tribunal established to conduct the trial of Saddam Hussein.

The Department of Athletics contributes $50,000 from its share of the MPC Computers Bowl to the Cavalier Marching Band and to the Faculty Senate to support a graduate fellowship.

Katie Couric (College '79), anchor of Today on NBC, hosts a dinner and tour of the Today set to showcase plans for the new clinical cancer building. Ms. Couric, who lost her husband, Jay Monahan, to colon cancer and her sister, Virginia Senator Emily Couric, to pancreatic cancer, is the honorary chair of the Cancer Center campaign.

Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter performs at the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, raising $175,000 in proceeds to benefit patient education and support services at the University of Virginia Cancer Center.

The University's graduate and professional schools fare well in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. The Law School moves up to eighth place, the School of Engineering and Applied Science jumps from forty-second to thirty-fourth, the Darden School is ranked fourteenth, and the Curry School of Education is twenty-second among its peers. The School of Medicine is ranked twenty-sixth in research.

The Curry School of Education celebrates its centennial on April 13, one hundred years from the day John D. Rockefeller, Sr., wrote to University President Edwin A. Alderman of his lead gift to build an education school.

Henri Matisse's Femme endormie and sixty-one other masterworks from the Mus�e des Beaux-Arts et d'Arch�ologie in Besan�on, France, go on display at the University of Virginia Art Museum in an ex-hibition titled "Masterpieces of European Drawing."

The McIntire School of Commerce breaks ground for its "Back to the Lawn" building project, a $50 million, 156,000-square-foot academic complex that integrates the complete renovation of Rouss Hall with construction of an adjoining building. Earlier in the month, Varsity Hall, built in 1858 as the University's first infirmary, is moved to make way for the new structure.

May

iris, a journal that began as a photocopied newsletter for the Women's Center, celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary. Now a magazine with a national readership, it can boast such contributors as feminist theorist Jennifer Baumgardner, scholar Margaret Stetz, cartoonist Linda Sherman, and poet Gregory Orr.

Graduate student Cory MacLauchlin introduces an unpublished Mark Twain speech held by the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library in Meridian, a literary magazine edited by creative writing students.

Rising Up, a documentary produced by history and media studies students, receives its first public screening before a packed house. Drawing on video archives in the Virginia Center for Digital History, the film tells the story of the civil rights movement in Virginia from the perspective of contemporary observers.

In Budapest, Hungary, the International Law Enforcement Academy celebrates its tenth anniversary. Operated by the School of Continuing and Professional Studies in partnership with the FBI, the academy is co-sponsored by the Hungarian government and the U.S. Department of State. SCPS Dean Sondra Stallard (Graduate Arts and Sciences '79) and FBI Director Robert Mueller (Law '73) both attend the ceremony.

The University's Department of Parking and Transportation Services begins a pilot program that results in fueling its entire thirty-bus fleet with B20 biodiesel, a blend of 80 percent conventional diesel fuel and 20 percent vegetable oil.

James P. Craig III and Rebecca T. Craig of Charlottesville give $1 million to create the James and Rebecca Craig Cancer Research Scholar Award to promote basic research in the Cancer Center.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Ron Suskind (College '81) delivers the Class Valediction address during Finals Weekend. The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award is given to Jefferson and Echols scholar Sally D. Wood (College '05), senior peer advisor Jeremy E. Davis (College '05), and Patricia M. Lampkin, vice president and chief student affairs officer. Dr. Vivian W. Pinn (Medicine '67), director of the Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health, becomes the first African American woman to deliver the commencement address at Final Exercises. To see and hear the events of the sun-filled weekend, visit www.virginia.edu/majorevents/highlights.html.

During Final Exercises, thirty-one adult students receive the bachelor of interdisciplinary studies degree. This is the fourth graduating class of the BIS program, offered by the School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

The Presidential Recordings Program in the Miller Center of Public Affairs releases a three-volume set of the recordings of President Lyndon Johnson, published by W. W. Norton.

June

The twenty-first annual U.Va. Children's Hospital Telethon, broadcast live locally each year, raises $1,757,650 for children's health programs and facilities.

Governor Mark Warner appoints three leaders in the University Health System to the Task Force on Information Technology in Health Care: Barbara Baldwin, chief information officer; Dr. Stephen M. Borowitz, professor of pediatrics and health evaluation sciences; and Dr. Don E. Detmer, professor of health evaluation sciences and newly appointed president of the American Medical Informatics Association.

The Society for College Science Teachers bestows its Kendall-Hunt Outstanding Undergraduate Science Teacher Award on Claire Cronmiller, the Cavaliers Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor of Biology.

Mitchell Green, associate professor of philosophy, receives the Contemplative Practice Award from the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. The $10,000 award provides a summer fellowship for research in contemplative practices.

Wilder: An American First, a documentary produced by the Community Idea Stations in collaboration with the University's Center for Politics, wins three Telly Awards. The film's subject is the nation's first elected African American governor, Douglas Wilder of Virginia.

Thomas F. Farrell II (College '76, Law '79) of Richmond becomes the thirty-eighth rector of the University. W. Heywood Fralin (College '62) of Roanoke is elected vice rector and will become rector in 2007.

The William Stamps Farish Fund of Houston, Texas, makes a $1.2 million commitment to the Department of Drama.

Governor Mark Warner welcomes ten new participants in the Virginia School Turnaround Specialist Program, offered by the Darden-Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education to help administrators turn around poorly performing schools.

July

The Virginia Tobacco Commission announces a $248,828 award to fund a new nursing career ladder in Southside and Southwest Virginia. The

School of Nursing is partnering with the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing to deliver baccalaureate and master's programs to registered nurses in those areas.

President John T. Casteen III announces that David J. Prior, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, will become the seventh chancellor of the University of Virginia's College at Wise.

Sean T. O'Brien (College '88, Graduate Arts and Sciences '94) becomes executive director of the Thomas C. Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership. He succeeds founding executive director William H. Wood, who retired earlier in the year.

Cheryl Gomez, the University's director of energy and utilities and the only woman to hold this post at a major U.S. college or university, is elected chair of the International District Energy Association. Under her direction, the University has earned eleven state, regional, and national awards for its energy management programs.

The School of Continuing and Professional Studies joins forces with the Virginia State Police to offer the first National Criminal Justice Command College. Twenty-nine law enforcement officers enter the intensive ten-week executive leadership program.

As part of the Jefferson Scholars Program's twenty-fifth anniversary celebration, the board of directors for the Jefferson Scholars Foundation names a new endowed graduate fellowship in honor of executive director Jimmy Wright and his wife, Elizabeth. Mr. Wright has overseen the program for twenty years.

August

Dr. Zhiyi Zuo, associate professor of anesthesiology, receives the Presidential Scholar Award for his research on stroke and Alzheimer's disease, as well as his outstanding teaching abilities. The distinction is given annually to one of the 40,000 members of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Thanks to AccessUVa, the University welcomes the most socioeconomically diverse entering class in its history. Of the 3,100 first-years and 300 transfer students, 787 are participants in AccessUVa, and 233 qualify for loan-free aid.

Cornelius O. Horgan, the Wills Johnson Professor of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics in the Department of Civil Engineering, receives the prestigious A.C. Eringen Medal from the Society for Engineering Science.

Leaders of the University's information technology programs win a national award from EDUCAUSE for their role in founding the Virginia Alliance for Secure Computing and Networking, a partnership among state universities and colleges to combat network security problems.

On University-owned land south of Jefferson Park Avenue, new archeological investigations uncover eighteen graves and a number of artifacts that appear to be part of a family cemetery associated with Catherine "Kitty" Foster, a free black woman who purchased the land in 1833. Since the cemetery was first discovered in 1993, thirty-two graves have been found, and they will remain undisturbed. A memorial is being planned for the site as part of Arts and Sciences' South Lawn Project.

September

Terry Belanger, founder of the Rare Book School at the University, wins a no-strings-attached fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He is cited for raising the profile of the book "as one of humankind's greatest inventions."

The Leifur Eiriksson Foundation, established by the Central Bank of Iceland and the University, begins accepting applications for new scholarships created to promote graduate student exchanges between Iceland and the United States.

One of the scholarships is named in memory of Robert L. Kellogg, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, a scholar of medieval Icelandic literature, and chair of the foundation's first board of trustees.

Arts and Sciences receives $2 million from the estate of Hugh N. O'Bear (McIntire '33) to create a professorship in classics named for his uncle, Hugh H. O'Bear (Law 1906).

The Miller Center of Public Affairs celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. The center was established in 1975 with a gift from Tennessee philanthropist Burkett Miller.

The Board of Visitors establishes the Buckner W. Clay Professorship, which is reserved for the dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Named in memory of a loyal member of the College's Class of '42, the chair was made possible by his wife, Hamilton G. "Toni" Clay, of Charleston, West Virginia.

Christine Todd Whitman, head of the Environmental Protection Agency and former governor of New Jersey, launches the Darden School's fiftieth anniversary speaker series with a lecture titled "A Time for Radical Moderates: Bringing American Politics Back to the Center."

William B. Harvey is appointed the University's first vice president and chief officer for diversity and equity. For the past five years, he has served as vice president of the Center for Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Equity at the American Council on Education.