The University of Virginia has always been distinguished by the quality of the educational experience we offer our students, particularly undergraduates. Our faculty prides itself on the quality of teaching and commitment to mentoring and advising here. Not surprisingly, one of the most anticipated moments of the academic year for the faculty is the announcement of the annual awards for outstanding teaching.

U.Va., however, is not alone among colleges and universities in encouraging the pedagogical skills of its faculty. What sets us apart are the inventive ways in which our faculty members capitalize on their research to enrich their students' educational experience. We have introduced a series of innovative educational programs with the potential to change the way our students think about their world, precisely because we are a research university.

Addressing Inequities in Health Care
The activities of the Center for Global Health illustrate a research university's educational advantages. Dr. Richard L. Guerrant, the Thomas Harrison Hunter Professor of International Medicine, created the center in 2001. The center supports an ambitious research program�Dr. Guerrant and his colleagues are acknowledged leaders in the field. Equally important, the center offers Global Health Scholarships to more than fifty undergraduate, graduate, and professional students at the University each year. These competitive scholarships partially fund six-to-eight-week research and service projects in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and underserved areas of the United States. Student research projects have included investigating the relationship between diarrhea and antiretroviral drug resistance in Brazilian HIV patients, measuring the prevalence of hypertension among the working poor in India, and assessing the health effects of water resources in South Africa.

The positive impact of this scholarship program cannot be overstated. Global Health Scholars return to Grounds with a deep appreciation of the struggles that define daily existence in most of the world, an insight that changes their lives. For some, this experience is so profound that it has led them to change the focus of their studies and pursue careers in medical research, public health, or international assistance.

Design That Works for the Environment
In her research, Phoebe Crisman embraces complexity. An associate professor of architecture, she is interested in developing ecologically sensitive designs that incorporate complicated infrastructure systems, greater land use density, site specificity, and community planning. She has just completed work funded by a Virginia Environmental Endowment Grant on a sustainable revitalization plan for 330 acres of industrial land at Money Point, Virginia, in collaboration with the Elizabeth River Project and U.Va.'s Institute for Environmental Negotiation.

This research project has an educational counterpart. While working on the revitalization plan, Professor Crisman and colleague Paxton Marshall, professor of electrical and computer engineering, assembled an interdisciplinary team of more than a dozen students from the School of Architecture and the School of Engineering and Applied Science to design and build the Learning Barge�a floating, self-sustaining environmental education field station on the Elizabeth River, one of the most polluted estuaries of the Chesapeake Bay. Powered by solar and wind energy, the floating field station collects rainwater, filters gray water with native plants, and uses recycled and renewable materials. This project gives K-12 schoolchildren from around Virginia the opportunity to experience the river firsthand and engage in hands-on exploration and learning.

With their students, Professors Crisman and Marshall have garnered a series of awards in national design competitions. Most recently, the project team won a P3 Award in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's sustainability competition on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It was one of only six projects to be recognized with a Sustainability Design Award of $75,000.

Law Students Take It to the Top Court
The expertise that Daniel R. Ortiz, the John Allan Love Professor of Law, has acquired in constitutional law inspired him to start a Supreme Court clinic at U.Va. The course, one 

Sullivan Winners Exemplify the Character of the University Sarah Strunk Jesimiel Jenkins Bill Wilson The Sullivan Award was created more than eighty years ago to honor Algernon Sydney Sullivan, a philanthropist and founder of the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. The generations of Sullivan Award winners have now come to epitomize the spirit of humanitarian service at U.Va. This year's winners are no exception. Sarah Strunk (College '07) served as chair of Project Serve, a fall orientation event that introduces incoming students to community service opportunities, and as a member of the board of directors of Madison House. Jesimiel Jenkins (College '07) was a University Guide, summer orientation leader, and peer advisor in the Office of African American Affairs. Bill Wilson, an associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, has led the international studies program, the Echols Scholars program, and the Center for Undergraduate Excellence during his nineteen-year tenure at the University.

of just five like it in the United States, introduces students to all aspects of Supreme Court practice through current cases. Students comb through federal appellate and state court decisions, looking for inconsistencies and requesting a review from the high court by filing a petition for a writ of certiorari or cert petition. Typically, the court agrees to hear just 100 cases from among the 7,000 cert petitions filed each year. In 2006, two of those petitions accepted by the Court were from U.Va., and law students will help prepare the cases for oral argument. Under ordinary circumstances, a lawyer could not expect to litigate a Supreme Court case before attaining senior partnership in a law firm.

Rethinking the Curriculum
The curriculum Jefferson proposed for his university marked a departure from that found at most universities of the time. Rather than look backward, he looked forward, designing an educational experience that would prepare students to meet the challenges of their age. This continues to be a priority at the University, and accordingly, we look for opportunities to make the education we offer more relevant to the needs of society.

Over the next fifteen years, as more of the Baby Boomer generation retires from public office, the demand for talented public leaders will increase. Leaders from a range of professional backgrounds, including law, medicine, business administration, and the social sciences, will be needed to assume the responsibilities and opportunities of public service. Thanks to the unprecedented generosity of Frank Batten, Sr. (College '50), the former chairman of Landmark Communications in Norfolk and one of the University's most loyal supporters, U.Va. will help meet this need by creating the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Mr. Batten's $100 million gift is the largest single gift in the history of the University. The Batten 

Fayerweather and Cocke Halls Are Back Two historic buildings, Fayerweather Hall on Rugby Road and Cocke Hall on the Lawn, returned to service in 2006 after extensive renovation. Fayerweather, built in the 1890s as a gymnasium, houses the McIntire Department of Art and the Carl H. and Martha S. Lindner Center for Art History. A re-created monitor, or skylight, runs along much of the building. The Department of Classics and the Corcoran Department of Philosophy occupy Cocke Hall, designed by Stanford White as a mechanical laboratory in 1898. COCKE HALL CLOCK RESUMES ITS DAILY ROUND Thanks to the generosity of a descendent of John Hartwell Cocke, friend of Thomas Jefferson and member of the original Board of Visitors, the Cocke Hall Clock has been restored to working order. The discovery of many of the clock's original parts in the building's attic helped with the process of renovation.

School is the first new school to be established at the University since the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration was created fifty-three years ago. At the same time, the University inaugurated a five-year master's degree program in public policy. The accelerated, interdisciplinary program will be open to U.Va. undergraduates who have finished three years of study and are interested in pursuing careers in government and the nonprofit sector.

The nation also faces a shortage of qualified engineers. To address this need, the School of Engineering and Applied Science joined with Central Virginia Community College (CVCC) and AREVA NP, a nuclear energy company, to offer a pilot program that would allow students to earn a four-year engineering degree from U.Va. without leaving the Lynchburg community. Having earned an associate of science in engineering degree from CVCC, students would take third- and fourth-year classes in selected engineering disciplines at the University, primarily through distance learning.

A Generation of Exceptional Promise
Students who choose the University are among the nation's brightest. Talented, ambitious, and idealistic, they bring with them high expectations of both the University and themselves. In the Jeffersonian tradition, their curiosity about the world 

comes from a desire to apply the knowledge they gain to shaping that world. The University is not simply a community of learners, but one of leaders.

This leadership can be gauged by the initiatives students have created to make life better on Grounds and around the world. In some cases, it is a matter of helping other students take advantage of all the University has to offer. For instance,

Emily Ewell (Engineering '07), inspired by the professors of a class she took as a University Guide, spearheaded the creation of LASE 360: U.Va.'s Unforgettable Lectures. Working from a list of student recommendations, she recruited a dozen professors in fields ranging from religious studies to politics to architecture to give one-hour presentations. The class, offered during the fall semester, proved so popular that all one hundred places were taken by the second day of registration.

Goldwater Scholars, from top, Jennifer Cano, Sean Cantrell, and Gary Shambat

Jocelyn Spaar (College '09) and Sebastijan Jemec (Architecture '08) wanted to highlight the talents of their peers. They collected student poetry and photos of artwork and designed posters for University Transit System buses. "Kinetics: UVArt & Poetry in Motion" created a new way to showcase talent while exposing the University community to a wider array of student art and poetry.

For an increasingly large contingent of U.Va. students, spring break means not a trip to the tropics but an opportunity to make a difference. This year, Alternative Spring Break, an independent student-run organization, sent 550 students in thirty groups to work on global projects ranging from invasive plant removal in Saguaro National Park in Arizona to microfinance projects with women in Honduras. Student site leaders are selected each April for the next year's trips.

Recognized for Individual Accomplishment
U.Va.'s talented and committed students routinely win national awards for their scholarship and service. This year was no different.

E. Ross Baird (College '07) was named a 2007 Marshall Scholar, one of just forty-three selected from colleges and universities in the United States. Last year, he was named a Truman Scholar. Mr. Baird also has accumulated accolades from the University. A Jefferson Scholar, he received the Gray-Carrington Leadership Award and the Robert Kent Gooch Award. He was president of the Raven Society as well as president of the Class of 2007. Pursuing his interest in political science, he 

researched voter participation in Italy, Croatia, Austria, and England on a Harrison Undergraduate Research grant and received a second Harrison grant to study voter turnout in his home state of Georgia. Mr. Baird will use his Marshall Scholarship to study comparative politics at the University of Oxford.

The three U.Va. students who were among the 317 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship recipients for 2007 highlight the strength of the University's science, mathematics, and engineering programs. These are one- and two-year scholarships for students who intend to pursue careers in these fields. Jennifer Cano (College '09) and Sean Cantrell (College '09), both physics majors, plan to earn doctorates and conduct research in mathematics or physics. Gary Shambat (Engineering '07) hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, focusing on emerging renewable energy technologies.

Tyler S. Spencer (College '07), an international health and environmental sustainability major, won a 2007 Udall Scholarship. He was one of eighty students selected by a twelve-member independent review committee on the basis of commitment to careers in the environment, health care, or tribal public policy; leadership potential; and academic achievement. The recipient of two Harrison Undergraduate Research grants, Mr. Spencer has conducted research in Africa examining the attitudes of Westerners and Africans toward the theory and practice of conservation.

Graduate students in the sciences also earned national honors. Five students�Erin Reed, Hilary Schaefer, Jennie Doberne, Adam Watson, and Niccolo Fiorentino�secured National Science Foundation fellowships for original research in diverse fields, from archaeology in Chaco Canyon to the neurobiology of emotion. Computer science graduate students Isabelle Stanton and Wei Le were among twenty students nationwide who received Google's Anita Borg Memorial Scholarships, which were established to encourage women to pursue careers in computer science and technology.

Collective Achievement
Success in the twenty-first century requires the ability to collaborate with others. The challenges we face are of a magnitude and complexity that transcend the efforts of individuals and require cross-disciplinary expertise. At the same time, globalization demands that we work side by side with people from other countries and other cultures. Seen in this light, the recognition U.Va. students have earned for their collaborative efforts is especially significant.

The McIntire School of Commerce curriculum's emphasis on teamwork pays off. This year, a team of students finished in first place in the final round to win the inaugural KPMG National Audit Case Competition. Sharing knowledge and responsibility, they devised an auditing strategy for a complex financial transaction that was then presented to a mock audit committee for review.

Teamwork is also important for lawyers. This year the American Bar Association awarded the student-run Virginia Law Weekly its Best Newspaper prize. The Weekly's staff credits improvements across the publication�in layout, photography, and creative writing�as the deciding factor in their win. Collaboration was instrumental for the University's undergraduate Mock Trial program to succeed in the twenty-third annual collegiate National Championship Tournament. Repeating their performance from 2006, the program's A team defeated Harvard in the championship round. The team members work together to prepare an entire case from opening statement to closing argument.