The University provides the time and resources to cultivate the life of the mind.

The University's future rests squarely on the ambition, the talent, and the character of its faculty. Although engaged in many different fields, they are united by a desire to uncover new knowledge and to find more effective, more inclusive ways to pass this knowledge—and the underlying sense of curiosity and awe that motivates this search—to the next generation. For their distinguished work and contributions to their disciplines, the University's faculty have been awarded some of the nation's highest honors.

Twenty-five of the University's faculty are fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Three faculty members are MacArthur fellows. The ranks of the National Academy of Sciences include three University faculty, while the National Academy of Engineering includes twelve. The prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences has inducted sixteen University faculty members. Today, as in Jefferson's time, the University's fortunes depend on the quality of its faculty, who truly demonstrate the "first order of the science" each professes.

A Lifetime of Singular Achievement
Universities are based on an ideal that is straightforward in conception, yet difficult to attain. They exist to provide talented men and women, students and faculty alike, with the time, the resources, and the encouragement to cultivate the life of the mind, to assemble a body of knowledge, and to use this knowledge creatively to engage the world in ways that express their unique perspectives and passions.

The University's success in creating such an environment was recognized early in the year when two of its faculty members, with dramatically different interests, were recognized by the highest authorities for their accomplishments. Dr. Barry J. Marshall, who holds joint faculty appointments at the School of Medicine and the University of Western Australia, is the first member of the University faculty to receive the Nobel Prize. He was honored with the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering the connection between Helicobacter pylori bacterium and peptic ulcers and gastric cancers.

Terry Belanger was named a 2005 fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, becoming the third faculty member at the University to win the so-called genius award. He is the founder and director of the Rare Books School, a U.Va.-based institute that supports the study of the history of books and rare books librarianship.

Honoring Our Own These awards provide an occasion for us to recognize the qualities that the University as a community holds dear. These awards provide an occasion for us to recognize the qualities that the University as a community holds dear.  The Thomas Jefferson Award, the highest honor given to a member of the University community, was bestowed on Annette Gibbs, professor of education and former associate dean of students. Professor Gibbs played a pivotal role in the University's transition to coeducation in the 1970s.  R. Jahan Ramazani (College '81), the Edgar F. Shannon, Jr., Professor of Arts and Sciences, received the first Jefferson Scholars Faculty Prize as part of the ongoing commemoration of the Jefferson Scholars Foundation's twenty-fifth anniversary. Professor Ramazani was chair of the Faculty Senate and has recently edited the Norton Anthology of English Literature's volume The Twentieth Century and After.  The Women's Center presented its annual Elizabeth Zintl Leadership Award to Dr. Karen Rheuban, medical director of the Office of Telemedicine, for spearheading the development of a statewide telemedicine network that draws on a consortium of physicians from about thirty different specialties.  The University thrives on outstanding teaching. This year, the Cavaliers' Distinguished Teaching Fellowship was awarded to Deborah A. Roach, associate professor of biology; the Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award went to Lillian R. BeVier, the David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law; and the Alumni Board of Trustees Teaching Award was presented to Robert L. Cross, associate professor of management in the McIntire School of Commerce.  The University of Virginia Patent Foundation named George T. Gillies, a research professor in mechanical and biomedical engineering, the recipient of its top award, the 2006 Edlich-Henderson Inventor of the Year Award. Professor Gillies was recognized for two decades of work in developing innovative catheters that hold the promise of revolutionizing treatment for brain cancer and complex brain diseases.

Honored across the Disciplines

Jefferson was a proponent of learned societies and their role in promoting discovery and the diffusion of knowledge. Accordingly, he would have been particularly pleased to learn that Carla B. Green, associate professor of biology; Joyce Libby Hamlin, chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics; and John L. Hudson, the Wills Johnson Professor of Engineering, were named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The association is perhaps the preeminent general science organization in the world and publisher of Science, the most influential peer-reviewed science journal in the world.

In addition, P. Kenneth Seidelmann, a research professor of astronomy, was among a team of Russian and American scientists that received the society's 2005 International Scientific Cooperation Award. Professor Seidelmann and his colleagues overcame ideological barriers to share information about space surveillance and the location of objects in areas of space near the Earth. Their work led to dramatic improvements in the orbits of geostationary satellites.

Rita Dove, the Commonwealth Professor of English and former U.S. Poet Laureate, was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded 226 years ago by Jefferson's rival and friend John Adams. She also won the 2006 Common Wealth Award for Literature, one of the five Common Wealth Awards for Distinguished Service. Previous winners have included eleven Nobel laureates, among them human rights leader Desmond Tutu, former statesman Henry Kissinger, and author Toni Morrison.

Other faculty garnering accolades this year included the following:
 Caleb E. Nelson received the prestigious Paul M. Bator Award from the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. Professor Nelson is currently the Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law.

 Robert F. Bruner, the Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business Administration and dean of the Darden School of Business, won a 2006 European Case Award for a case that focuses on the development of Boeing's 777 air frame.
 Julie Bargmann, associate professor of landscape architecture, was one of twenty-five "2005 All-Stars" profiled by Outside magazine.
 Toby Berger, professor of electrical and computer engineering, was named the recipient of the Leon K. Kirchmayer Graduate Teaching Award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He also was named one of the newest members of the National Academy of Engineering.
 Laura M. Justice, an associate professor at the Curry School of Education, received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The PECASE is considered the highest national honor for investigators in the early stages of highly promising academic careers.
 Merrill D. Peterson, professor emeritus of history and former dean of faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences, is the most recent recipient of the Literary Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia. Professor Peterson, a noted Jefferson scholar, has written or edited thirty-seven books.

 Ann Beattie, the Edgar Allan Poe Professor of English and Creative Writing, won the Rea Award for the Short Story. The award is given annually to a writer making a significant contribution to the discipline of the short story as an art form.
 Bernard Frischer, professor of art history and classics and director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, received the Pioneer Achievement Award from the International Society for Virtual Systems and Multimedia.

Numbered among the Commonwealth's Best
This year, John D. Arras, the H. William Porterfield, M.D., and Linda Obenauf Porterfield Professor of Biomedical Ethics; and José D. Fuentes, the Cavaliers' Distinguished Teaching Professor, were among the fifteen faculty members at Virginia's public and private colleges and universities named by the State Council for Higher Education to its list of outstanding faculty. Professor Arras is an internationally recognized authority on bioethics and has published widely on such difficult issues as physician-assisted suicide and research ethics. Professor Fuentes is an atmospheric scientist currently involved in a large-scale NASA project in West Africa to probe the origins of hurricanes.

The only magazine that garnered more National Magazine Award nominations this year than the Virginia Quarterly Review was the Atlantic Monthly. This is an unprecedented achievement for a magazine with a full-time staff of four and a circulation of less than 7,000. The publication's editor, Ted Genoways (Graduate Arts and Sciences '99), brought home two awards from the ceremonies at New York's Lincoln Center: one for General Excellence and another for Fiction. Time, Esquire, Harper's, Rolling Stone, New York, and The New Yorker also won two awards each. A look at the magazine's table of contents shows why it has attracted so much attention. Recent issues feature writing by Gabriel García Márquez, Joyce Carol Oates, and Cormac McCarthy, and a section of a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman.