• Host of U.Va. Grads Choose Service to Community and Country

Harriett Jameson has experienced the value of growing up in a healthy environment, where the richness of the land fosters community and a sense of well-being. That experience informed her academic pursuits in the University of Virginia School of Architecture.

Jameson, who on Sunday will receive dual master’s degrees in landscape architecture and urban and environmental planning, was raised on her family farm in a rural community near Brownsville in southwest Tennessee. “All of my family are farmers, minus a few Methodist ministers, and we have lived on the farm since 1819,” she said.

“It is my deep connection to that place that originally sparked my interest in designing places for people in cities who don’t have that connection to their environments.”

In 2013, she and Asa Eslocker, a fellow master’s degree candidate in landscape architecture, were awarded U.Va.’s Benjamin Howland Fellowship for an interdisciplinary research project that aimed to travel the globe and study the qualities of places where residents enjoy extremely high longevity.

These hot spots, known as “Blue Zones,” include Loma Linda, California; Sardinia, Italy; and Okinawa, Japan. According to author Dan Buettner, who has studied and written about these areas, residents of those areas reach age 100 at 10 times the rate of the general U.S. population.

Jameson and Eslocker called their project “Landscapes of Longevity,” and through a cultural landscape perspective, researched each site to learn how its physical characteristics support healthy communities and to explore the importance of the sense of place on well-being.

Their intention was to promote a greater understanding of how Blue Zone landscapes can suggest insights and ideas for public spaces that engender healthy aging elsewhere. The vernacular landscapes of the three chosen Blue Zones had, over time, shaped cultures whose daily work, food and social routines enabled citizens to live measurably longer, healthier lives and work productively well into old age.

They interviewed Blue Zone seniors – many of them in their 90s, including a Sardinian family that includes the Guinness Book of World Records’ oldest siblings, nine brothers and sisters whose collective age adds up to 828 years – about the ways they believe their environments contribute to their well-being. With Eslocker’s background in video production – for eight years, he worked in broadcast and investigative news at ABC News in New York – they sought to create a documentary that would highlight the qualitative connections between landscapes and longevity through personal narratives, daily routines and spatial practices.

As a narrative, exhibit and film, “Landscapes of Longevity” is an account of the students’ expedition and journey, retelling the stories of the people and places they met along the way. (More information, including blogs and videos, can be found here.)

Jameson’s background directly influenced her choice of project focus. In 2007, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree from U.Va. with a dual major in English and studio art. For three years she worked as an education coordinator at the U.S. Green Building Council in Washington, D.C. where she became interested in the design of sustainable cities for the creation of healthy communities.

After enrolling in U.Va.’s Architecture School, Jameson served as a coordinator and researcher with the international Biophilic Cities Project, led by professor Timothy Beatley, which seeks to advance the theory and practice of planning for cities throughout the world that contain an abundance of nature.

Jameson’s design and research interests continue to be in understanding how places work to foster well-being, and to incorporate holistic ideas of health – including spiritual, mental and non-Western concepts – into design and planning.

Her master’s thesis uses the Landscapes of Longevity research found in the Blue Zones to cultivate design strategies for public places that can support healthy aging.

In Loma Linda, for example, there’s an entire culture of people gardening, walking their pets and going to a central gym to socialize with friends. In Sardinia, many of the towns are very dense, so people see their family and friends on the way to church and while running errands.

Jameson’s research also notes the significance of having beautiful views as part of daily life. Over time, scenic views can reduce stress levels and psychologically restore peace of mind. Physically, they help to increase serotonin levels, and that reduction in stress can reduce the risk of heart attacks.

The project sprang directly from a collaborative design studio course about the Charlottesville Farmers’ Market, taught by Elizabeth K. Meyer, associate professor of landscape architecture. Given the increasing rates of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease in the U.S., Eslocker and Jameson became interested in the way that public spaces could foster cultures of health and social equity.

The “Landscapes of Longevity” project was born in April 2013 and earned grants from the School of Architecture, Center for Design and Health, Contemplative Sciences Center, Center for International Studies and Jefferson Area Board for Aging. In addition, advisers and collaborations from the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, Division of Biomedical Informatics, Contemplative Sciences Center and the architecture, urban planning and landscape architecture departments supported them.

“The most exciting work that I have been a part of during my academic career is the Landscapes of Longevity project,” Jameson said. “There is no way this project could have happened without the generous support and time of many departments across Grounds and the dedication, energy and fearlessness of Asa.

“The support for this project among the University and Charlottesville communities has been overwhelming. The project’s success really speaks to the dedication of the U.Va. community to support students in significant interdisciplinary research and to be open-minded about the cross-disciplinary collaborations.”

The Landscape Architecture Foundation recently named Jameson a finalist in its National Olmsted Scholarship program, which recognizes landscape architect students for their leadership, original research and performance.

“The work I achieved at U.Va. – and the national recognition I received – has opened my eyes to further research opportunities examining the relationship between place design and public well-being,” she said.

On Monday, Jameson will begin working in her new job as a lecturer and program director for the Architecture School’s Community Design and Research Center, a position that evolved over the past three years from her collaborative research with Suzanne Moomaw, associate professor of urban and environmental planning.

“Harriett is one of those exceptional individuals who has the intellect, talent and maturity to set new standards for the way we conceptualize and construct the world we share,” Moomaw said. “I continue to be impressed by her ability to bring clarity to difficult public policy and design challenges.

“Her research with me on the defining elements of community resiliency has moved my own thinking to a new level. Like Jefferson, she is ‘bold in the pursuit of knowledge’ with a passion for learning tempered in the practical and the possible.”

Jameson’s responsibilities will include the delivery of the overall program and its activities, developing new initiatives, crafting budgets, funding proposals and building university and community support as well as teaching courses, studios and workshops, as well as planning programs, seminars, exhibits and other events.

“I am very grateful and enthusiastic to have the opportunity to spend more time at the University,” Jameson said. “In this position, I hope to expand upon my graduate research, examining paradigms like universal design and accessibility, play and connectivity.

“I want to further utilize the dynamic connections I have made across Grounds to explore how we can design healthier communities that foster preventative health and holistic well-being in the future.”

As far the “Landscapes of Longevity” project goes, the documentary’s debut has been delayed until fall because of the unexpected death of Eslocker’s father, Tom, a loyal supporter of the students’ project.

As the project’s site states:  “[This event] has both postponed the film and propelled us to see longevity and life in a new way.”

• Host of U.Va. Grads Choose Service to Community and Country

Most college graduates are lucky to be able to include six months of internships, cobbled together over several summers, on their resumes. Not Aaron Holowaychuk.

Holowaychuk is a student in Engineers PRODUCED in Virginia, the online bachelor’s degree program in engineering science offered by the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science for graduates of the Virginia Community College System. Because of the program’s flexibility, Holowaychuk was able to spend more than 18 consecutive months interning at the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing. After graduation, he will spend another three months at Rolls-Royce, one of the center’s founding partners.

“As a PRODUCED student, you have the opportunity while you’re going to school to accumulate extensive real-world experience,” he said. “It’s one of the advantages of the program.”

Holowaychuk’s internship at the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing’s 60,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art research facility in Prince George County provided him with a particularly rich set of experiences. The center is a research-based collaboration between the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and Virginia State University, and manufacturing companies worldwide. Its focus is surface engineering and manufacturing systems.

“At CCAM, I created [computer-aided design] drawings and conducted microscopic evaluations of thermal barrier coatings,” Holowaychuk said. He also became the center’s resident authority on Microsoft SharePoint, a program that enables organizations to store, share and collaborate on files. Equally important, he built a network of contacts with engineers at the center and its member companies.

“From an educational point of view, Aaron’s ability to immediately apply concepts he learned in class is very powerful,” said James Groves, associate dean for online innovation and director of the PRODUCED program. “It solidifies knowledge in ways that would be difficult to duplicate otherwise.”

Engineers PRODUCED in Virginia fit Holowaychuk’s needs in other ways as well. He was living in the Richmond area, close to his family and girlfriend (soon to become his wife). While completing an associate’s degree at J. Sergeant Reynolds Community College he set his sights on completing an engineering degree without leaving home. Engineers PRODUCED in Virginia – expressly designed to enable nontraditional students to complete a bachelor’s degree in their home communities – was the answer.

“I wasn’t looking for a college experience,” Holowaychuk said. “I was looking for a quality education.”

Although initially hesitant about taking a degree online, Holowaychuk was swayed by the reputation of U.Va.’s engineering program. As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. He took regular U.Va. classes broadcast in real time from specially equipped classrooms. Holowaychuk and his fellow PRODUCED classmates could digitally raise their hands, ask questions and participate in discussion.

“U.Va. faculty did a great job merging off-Grounds and on-Grounds students,” he said. “It was as if they were teaching two classes simultaneously.”

Holowaychuk was particularly impressed by the efforts that assistant professor Gavin Garner made in adapting “Mechatronics,” a laboratory course that combines computer science with electrical and mechanical engineering. Garner sent each off-Grounds student a lab kit with everything they needed to complete the assignments. “There was just a single time I had to come to Charlottesville to work with a large component,” Holowaychuk said.

Otherwise, Holowaychuk used Skype or Microsoft Lync to work on projects with mixed groups of on- and off-Grounds students. “From a professional point of view, the experience of collaborating with people at different locations is invaluable,” he said. “I know from my work with CCAM that this is how global engineering is conducted.”

U.Va.’s success in delivering courses to students off-Grounds has led Holowaychuk to propose that the program be adapted for on-Grounds students. “The technology is in place,” he said. “Instead of having just a summer internship, on-Grounds students could extend that internship into fall and take classes, as I did, at a distance. It would add a whole new dimension to their education.”

-- Charlie Feigenoff

• Host of U.Va. Grads Choose Service to Community and Country

The University of Virginia women’s rowing team has won two of the last four NCAA championships, finished among the top six in 15 of the past 16 seasons and won 13 of the last 14 ACC championships. Throughout the spring season head coach Kevin Sauer tinkers with the lineups in each boat in a constant quest to shave seconds off race times. The squad’s 78 rowers constantly compete to fill seats – particularly the 20 seats in the team’s top three boats that will compete in the NCAA championships, to be held May 30 to June 1 in Indianapolis.

Graduating fourth-year student Emily Pik is one of the team’s two co-captains, but even she doesn’t expect to know if she’ll be among the select 20 until days before the final regatta.

Last year was the first time she made the cut. She rowed in the bow seat in the Cavaliers’ Varsity Four, which had captured four of the prior eight national titles. Entering the 2013 NCAA championships, the boat ranked No. 11 in the nation, but Pik and crew finished fourth, just 0.12 seconds off a bronze medal finish.

“That was the highlight of my rowing career thus far,” along with being elected co-captain and her 2010 Youth Nationals victory during high school in Connecticut, she said.

But that’s not what rowing is all about for Pik. “To win a national championship, you have to put the team first, and the individual second. It’s hard. It’s hard to have that perspective sometimes,” she said. The constant internal competition is “both the beauty and the downfall” of rowing for a national powerhouse team.

That spirit of selfless dedication has made Pik a natural leader in virtually every sphere at U.Va., including at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, where she is a leader in the school’s first undergraduate class, comprising 43 students who will walk the Lawn on Sunday.

As with any new program, these students were trailblazers and guinea pigs, said Paul Martin, Batten’s director of professional development and a lecturer in public policy who taught some of the core curriculum for the B.A. in public policy and leadership.

“They were conscious of being a pioneering class, the leaders of this new major,” and were generous with their time and feedback on how to improve things, he said. As such “they’ve been co-designers of this major, and Emily was at the forefront of that leadership.”

Pik helped create the Batten Undergraduate Council. As an executive board member, she organized class events ranging from sunrise hikes and tailgates to a semi-formal dance and a “Leadership Dinner” with Batten faculty and staff.

She also helped organize the first-ever Batten Family Weekend in February, featuring “Batten Legends” lectures by three Batten faculty, to show parents how students are studying leadership and public policy, she said.

Even though classmates and faculty members alike joke that Pik must never sleep, she found time to tackle several academic challenges above and beyond her Batten School classes, in which she earned a 3.6 GPA.

She volunteered to be among the inaugural “Batten Corps,” a program that combines elements of service and academics. Under Martin’s guidance, she and a few Batten classmates researched how the local Albemarle Housing Improvement Program might better measure the effectiveness of its work. “I saw it as a great way to get involved in the local community,” she said.

The students suggested AHIP look at home-value assessments before and after an intervention, and Pik focused on calculating projected future energy savings from certain projects like adding insulation, Martin said.

“That was an awesome experience in terms of presenting real facts and data to an organization that hopefully will use our data to move forward in the evaluation process that they have,” she said.

She also volunteered to be a research assistant for social psychology doctoral student Matt Motyl’s study looking at how people holding a minority political view react in a group that discusses a hard-edged political issue like abortion or gun control.

In the summer of 2012, Pik journeyed to South Africa to study the country’s health care system. Volunteering in community health care centers as part of the study abroad program, she observed how poor South Africans line up for hours to see a doctor, and how the nation struggles with AIDS and tuberculosis. “I learned so much about HIV and AIDS, and about apartheid and Nelson Mandela,” she said. The trip stoked a passion for global public health issues, and she plans to work on the issue in the future, she said.

“Emily embodies all that we hope to see in our Batten students,” said Jill Rockwell, Batten’s senior assistant dean for student and career services. “She is intelligent, and has, quite literally, taken every opportunity to be a selfless leader: on the crew team, in her classes, within the Batten School, the greater U.Va. and Charlottesville communities and even in the commonwealth, through her work in the governor’s office.”

Last summer she was a Virginia Governor’s Fellow in the office of Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade Jim Cheng. She put together a policy proposal to tweak a state program that offers student loan repayment help for young physicians – to better encourage them to work in rural areas of Virginia with physician shortages, particularly Southwest Virginia and Southside. Pik pitched the idea to then-Gov. Robert F. McDonnell’s chief of staff, who liked it enough to pass it along to the governor, said Pik’s fellowship supervisor,Logan Pugh. (Pugh is another fellow Batten School pioneer who was in the first class to graduate in 2009 from the five-year accelerated bachelor’s/master’s of public policy program.)

Pik “figured out what was needed, took ownership and delivered high-quality work,” Pugh said. “Her positive attitude and outlook are infectious. And she’s always cutting through issues to create solutions.”

It was McDonnell’s final year in office, so he wasn’t able to take on the proposal. But Pik is still hopeful that Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, might pick it up, she said. “I couldn’t have done it without the background and knowledge I had gained from the Batten School in the previous year.”

This spring she has worked as a research assistant for Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Warner’s reelection campaign. Having worked for politicians on both sides of the aisle, Pik said she learned that party “is not a dividing or deciding factor in terms of coming up with policies and implementing them.”

Later this summer, Pik will start a job in New York City as a research analyst for Cognolink, a rapidly growing young research firm that does global research for investors in a variety of industries.

“I definitely foresee working as a policymaker at some point,” she said. “I just don’t know when or where, or doing what.”

Her experiences in the meantime will be relevant, she noted.

“Even if I work in the private sector, any institution or company is affected by government regulation. I learned that in my capstone project this past semester working on food safety regulation,” she said. “Even though I’m not becoming a policymaker quite yet, I will learn how government impacts things other than health care and the issues that I have studied, which will broaden my knowledge base and make me a better policymaker somewhere down the road.”

• Host of U.Va. Grads Choose Service to Community and Country

As a longtime bicyclist, Alec Gosse is concerned with bike safety and the desire to make bicycle travel practical in a society centered on automobile travel.

As a civil and environmental engineering student at the University of Virginia, he wrote two published research papers on infrastructure and active transportation and co-led a “big data” project designed to get a better fix on bicycle usage and its relation to the more dominant automobile and bus traffic in Charlottesville.

That work, and another paper, formed the basis of his dissertation, which led to Gosse earning his Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering in December. He now works for Commonwealth Computer Research Inc., a Charlottesville company that provides advanced analytical services to clients in cyber security, data fusion, predictive analysis and in other domains.

“No doubt the big data-related work I did at U.Va. led to this job,” he said.

With $40,000 in funding from the U.Va. Alumni Association’s Jefferson Trust, Gosse and electrical and computer engineering graduate student Emmanuel Denloye-Ito developed a multidisciplinary project to improve bicycle transportation by sorting through masses of traffic camera data, and then using that data to create computer models that ultimately could provide insight to complex traffic patterns. The idea is that such knowledge eventually will be useful for planning roads that will provide safer, more attractive infrastructure for bicycles, and thus encourage more bicycle use.

“Very little is known about bicycle traffic patterns by city and state governments, so we had the idea to find a way to extract and make sense of such data by using traffic monitoring systems already in place around the city,” Gosse said. “The ultimate goal is to gain a better understanding of how cyclists use existing infrastructure, and then use that knowledge to optimize future investments.”

Gosse and Denloye-Ito began seeking ways to make traffic signal detection cameras count bicycles in addition to cars. These cameras are increasingly employed to alert traffic signals of waiting vehicles; however, the software is not designed to distinguish bicycles. In essence, they are lost data.

The researchers developed a way to begin capturing this data by, in effect, training cameras at various intersections to “know” what to look for, and to count it. It is a big data project in the sense that the research “mines” a particular type of data that already exists and is continuously collected, but is lost in the mass of other information that is used for other purposes.

Gosse said bicycle traffic is more likely than motor vehicle traffic to be affected by weather, distance to destination, time of day, infrastructure and other factors.

To get more people to ride bikes more often, planners would need to structure roads, intersections and bike paths to accommodate safe bicycling as a practical means of commuting.

“If bicycling were more comfortable to do in urban areas, as it is in parts of Europe, I really believe many more people would do it,” Gosse said. “It would have so many benefits for public health and the environment. People would get more exercise; there would be less obesity, a reduction in pollutants and greenhouse gasses, and real progress toward bridging our current transportation funding shortfall.

“Making bicycling-as-transportation common, however, will require new thinking on the part of city engineers about how to compute the costs and benefits of road projects. We could do that with better non-motorized data to bridge the information divide between transportation planning and the public health costs we bear as a result.”

Gosse is a “Triple Hoo,” meaning he’s earned three degrees from U.Va. – his Ph.D., and previous master’s degrees in urban and environmental planning and in civil and environmental engineering. He plans to attend his doctoral hooding ceremony at the School of Engineering and Applied Science on Sunday.

Gosse’s bicycle traffic study is one of eight Big Data projects funded through a grant from the Jefferson Trust Foundation, and in collaboration with the Office of the Vice President for Research and the University’s newly founded Data Science Institute. The big data research initiative is designed to create opportunities for graduate students in diverse disciplines to collaborate in search of solutions to contemporary problems that are far broader than individual disciplines. This enhances the student experience and improves research across the University.

“Alec’s project is a great example of two important aspects of data science,” said Don Brown, director of the Data Science Institute and W.S. Calcott Professor of Systems and Information Engineering. “First, it shows that by repurposing sensors – traffic lights in this case – we can efficiently collect the data we need for better urban design. Second, by combining the data science techniques and domain expertise from two disciplines, we can solve problems that were previously considered too difficult by each individual discipline.

 “So the multidisciplinary approach that Alec and his colleagues developed for this problem provided an important new direction for urban planning,” he said. “It also gave Alec the skills he needed to obtain a highly sought position with CCRi, a local company doing leading research and development in data science.”

• Host of U.Va. Grads Choose Service to Community and Country

The Rendas’ love affair with the University of Virginia has been playing out for more than three decades.

It started in 1976, when Susan Malecki met fellow student Tom Renda. They married at the University Chapel a year after graduating from U.Va. in 1980, Malecki from the School of Nursing and Renda from the College of Arts & Sciences. After Tom added a degree from the School of Law in 1984, they moved to Baltimore, where they established careers and raised two daughters: Karen, who graduated from the College in 2006 and the Curry School of Education in 2007, and Emily, who graduates Sunday – alongside Susan, who’ll be making her second trip down the Lawn.

“When I considered pursuing my doctorate and found out U.Va.’s executive-style Doctorate of Nursing Practice program could be done while working full-time and be completed in three years, I was sold,” said Susan, who teaches at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and is a nurse practitioner and program coordinator at the university’s Diabetes Center. When she did the math, she realized she had to ask her daughter if it would be OK if they ended up graduating together. Emily’s reply: “That would be so cool!” 

That sentiment has proven to be true for both women, “even [during] the down turns,” Emily shared in an email.

Susan’s studies have led to improvements in diabetes education for patients in the U.S. and abroad.

Emily’s experiences and research landed her an internship with U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan this year and an invitation to participate in the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. They have also shaped the direction that her graduate studies and life’s work will take.

From Survivor to Passionate Advocate

Emily Renda entered U.Va. intending to major in the interdisciplinary Environmental Thought & Practice program, because, in her own words, she was “very interested in dirt and soil.” But when she was sexually assaulted during her first semester at U.Va., “a lot of my dreams and goals got railroaded by the immediate need to figure out what to do,” she said.  

With the support of her family, friends and University community members, including staff at the U.Va. Women’s Center, Renda turned her assault into an opportunity to help others. “I can’t change what happened, but I can hopefully change it for someone else,” she said.

Not only did Emily’s academic plans change, so did her involvement at U.Va. She became a distinguished major in sociology; began interning for the Women’s Center; joined the Sexual Assault Facts and Education organization (since renamed One Less) and was elected president; became involved with Take Back the Night, an annual national program in which U.Va. participates that aims to end all types of sexual violence; chaired the Sexual Assault Leadership Council; and served on the Inter-Sorority Council as Women’s Concerns Chair.

Emily’s experiences over her first three years prepared her to discuss sexual assault in a broader context, and her involvement with February’s national Dialogue at U.Va.: Sexual Misconduct Among College Students, which convened higher education voices from around the nation to discuss sexual misconduct at the college level, led to her being invited to the White House listening session.

At the U.Va.-hosted national conference, Emily participated in a student panel. She talked “about sexual assault as an issue that is pervasive on college campuses, but doesn’t have a clear answer,” she said.

“It was a room full of people who didn’t know the answer, but at least had methods. I’m so proud to have gone to the school that was the first one to hold a conference like this.”

Following the conference, the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault invited Emily to take part in one of a series of “listening sessions” that same month on ways that educators, researchers and survivors can inform the federal response to campus rape and sexual assault.

In April, the task force released its initial report, to which Emily contributed. According to “Not Alone: The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault,” one in five women experience sexual violence as students, 75 percent to 80 percent of whom know their attacker. Most don’t report it.

Emily’s White House invitation came by way of Claire Kaplan, the Women’s Center’s director of sexual assault and domestic violence services, who recommended her to the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance, which shared the information with its Campus Task Force, “and the rest is history,” Kaplan wrote in an email.

Emily initially believed that the invitation would simply allow her to listen to the discussion. Once she realized that she would be speaking as a member of the sexual assault prevention community, she recognized the opportunity at hand.

“I reached out to everyone almost immediately to figure out how to represent myself and these interests,” she said.

When Emily arrived at the White House on Feb. 21 for the session, she learned that her distinguished major thesis had caught the interest of Lynn Rosenthal, White House adviser on violence against women.

Emily had sent her research to Rosenthal prior to the listening session. The thesis focuses on the fundamental conflict between due process and Title IX, a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity, with an analysis of how to make a sexual misconduct policy as strong as possible to encourage the highest number of reports based on the conflict. Rosenthal shared Emily’s work with the task force.

“When I ended up at the roundtable discussion, most of what my perspective called on was based on my research, which comes out of my own experiences to begin with,” Emily said. “It was an interesting twist, to say the least.”

The roundtable discussion included members of the task force, representatives of government departments and agencies; Kathleen Sebelius, then-Secretary of Health and Human Services; and Emily’s advocacy peers.

While Emily acknowledges the broad range of student perspectives engaged in the discussion, she considers herself to hold an alternative viewpoint to many of the traditional advocacy voices.

“I think I’m in kind of an odd position. I’m not your typical survivor advocate. I’m less grassroots and more higher education-focused,” she said.

Emily’s ongoing research also drew attention during the discussion. She is currently working on a climate survey that provides a de-gendered instrument to measure rape attitude, perpetration and victimizations. “A lot of the old methods assume victims are women and perpetrators are male, which we know to not be true, so I have [created] this de-gendered instrument,” she said.

The instrument struck the interest of the U.S Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women, which hopes to replicate the research on a larger scale. While it is unlikely that the office will use the exact instrument Emily developed, it will either conduct its own research to create a similar instrument or give schools the instrument to further develop for their use.

“It’s nice to be a 21-year-old kid with a little bit of experience telling someone how you did what you did,” Emily said.

The task force’s existence and its engaged dialogue with students are signs that sexual assault advocacy is moving in a positive direction, she said.

“If we start early to get people to think in a healthy, constructive way about their sexuality and relationship expectations, there would be so much less shame and stigma when someone is assaulted at a college level,” Emily said.

Emily plans to continue her advocacy after graduation. She will enter a dual-degree program run by Johns Hopkins’ School of Public Health and the University of Maryland’s School of Law and concentrate on women’s leadership and equality and gender in the law.

“I’m looking forward to not just focusing on the adjudication side and the legal implications, but also maintaining the level of public health research and prevention-type work that I’ve also enjoyed,” she said. “I like to think of it as getting on either side of the issue and smashing it. You can’t do it from one side. You have to push it from both.”

Her ultimate goal is “to work in any of a few different areas – higher ed Title IX coordination, civil discrimination litigation or criminal code reform around gender-based violence. I’m just excited to see where the possibilities lead.”

Embrace Education at Every Age

Susan Renda, with more than 26 years of experience as a nurse practitioner and professor, said her return to graduate school was stirred by her 30th reunion at U.Va. There she met a former Nursing School classmate who’d earned her doctoral degree.

“Do I want to get a different view on nursing?” Susan recalled asking herself. The answer was yes.

“It was nice to come to U.Va. for a perspective outside my setting at JHU,” Susan said. “The courses were excellent, the teachers were excellent, my fellow [Doctor of Nursing Practice] students were amazing and the director of the program, Dorothy Tullmann, was very responsive to the learning needs of the students. My committee chair, Marianne Baernholdt, has wisdom and insight into how to successfully guide a project and find meaningful clinical implications to improve peoples’ health,” she said.

Her U.Va. capstone project increased diabetes education to employees at a large medical institution, she said. And though her role as nurse practitioner and professor will continue, she expects to use her new knowledge in her teaching and with initiatives now and as they arise in the future.

‘Happy Accident’ and ‘Fun Bond’

The commuter mom said she enjoyed going to school with Emily.

“I got to come to Charlottesville for classes and meetings about once a month, stayed with some dear friends of mine from my undergrad years and caught up to Emily and her friends,” she said. “When Emily came home to Maryland, we would grab our computers and head off to a coffee shop for some Wi-Fi and to be study buddies. We would watch ‘Friday Bride Day’ and [Law & Order’s] ‘SVU’ for a needed study break. I know more than a few times, Emily gave me encouragement to keep going on a literature review or paper – ‘you can do it, Mom.’ … I exercised at the gym where she worked, and stood on the student hill for football games with her friends while I watched ‘The Adventures of Cav Man.’ How many moms get to sing the ‘Good Ol’ Song’ and do cheers with their daughter?

“We are quite a U.Va. family, and that makes me happy,” Susan said. “Our educations at U.Va. were different from each other, giving each of us a unique experience, but we all love U.Va., and it creates such a fun bond.” 

The U.Va. highlights for Emily are many, and include people as well as the place.

“I could go on all day with shout-outs to incredible people, but there are a few: To Alison Pugh, a fantastic adviser; to Dean Nicole Eramo, an incredible mentor; to Victoria Olwell for my first introduction to feminist thought; to Claire Kaplan for fulfilling years with the Women’s Center.

“It’s all seemed so wonderful, even the downturns or speed bumps,” she said. “I’ve loved going to the White House ... [and] late nights at the Virginian. I’ve loved streaking the Lawn, the way Alderman stacks smells like musty books. I’ve loved my incredible friendships and the opportunity to work with so many people at so many levels – student or administrator. I’ve loved discovering the hiking around Charlottesville, the late-night drives with friends, sitting in professor’s offices, finishing my thesis in the fall instead of the summer.

“It was the happiest of accidents that mom’s career path and my time in college happened to line up,” she said.

That’s what will happen again Sunday, when the two line up to process the Lawn together, then attend each other’s diploma ceremonies.

Peter Low, who retires this month after 50 years on the faculty of the University of Virginia School of Law, has worn many hats over the course of his career: Supreme Court clerk, law reformer, associate dean, U.Va. provost and professor.

No matter which hat he wore, he aimed to improve everything he worked on, whether it was his teaching or the criminal justice system.

“One of the great things about academic life is that it’s a constant learning process,” Low said. “That’s the joy of legal academia in many ways – struggling with hard problems and trying to find better answers.”

Low, who served as vice president and provost of the University from 1994 to 2001, joined the U.Va. Law faculty in 1964, just a year after graduating from the Law School. During the academic career that followed, he participated in efforts to improve the criminal justice system, taught at the FBI Academy and co-authored popular casebooks in criminal law, federal courts and civil rights litigation. He also spent many years shepherding the Law School’s curriculum and students toward success.

“Peter Low was, for 15 years, the linchpin of making this institution work. He was almost like the chief operating officer for the Law School – a title no one thought of then,” U.Va. law professor and former Dean John C. Jeffries Jr. said. “He’s a critically important person in the life of this institution.”

From the Classroom to the Supreme Court

After studying philosophy at Princeton as an undergraduate, Low married and started law school at U.Va. in the fall of 1960.

“They weren’t paying philosophers very much at the time,” he joked. “At the end of the day, law deals with some of the most deeply difficult political and moral dilemmas that people have to face.”

You can debate moral questions forever in philosophy, “but you can’t do that in law,” he added.  ”In law you have some of the same deep problems, but you’ve got to have an answer tomorrow.”

Though most Supreme Court clerks today first work for a federal appeals court, Low went straight from the classroom to clerking for the most powerful judge in the country, Chief Justice Earl Warren.

In that term, 1963-64, President Kennedy was assassinated, the Warren Commission was established, and the justices made several landmark rulings, including New York Times v. Sullivan, a key decision supporting freedom of the press, and Reynolds v. Sims, the one-man, one-vote decision requiring that districts for the election of state legislators be roughly equal in proportion (Warren called it his most important opinion). That term also marked the last of the sit-in cases, involving challenges to racially based exclusionary policies in public places, such as restaurants. The Supreme Court ultimately decided the cases on narrow grounds because the Civil Rights Act of 1964 resolved the issue by statute.

“The court dealt with an incredible list of cases while we were there,” Low said. “We realized it was historic times. It was a great term to be there.”

The ‘Year or Two’ That Turned Into a Career

Though Low intended to practice law after his clerkship, he accepted an invitation to join the faculty instead – ”for a year or two that turned into a career.” He came to the faculty along with fellow clerk Professor A. E. Dick Howard.

At first, Low taught classes with as many as 150 students, some of whom were older than he.

Rather than finding it intimidating, “I thought it was fun,” he said.

McGuireWoods attorney Lucius Bracey, 1967 Law School alumnus, took Low’s criminal law course. Bracey said two-thirds of the professors at U.Va. Law then had decided to teach following successful careers working on Wall Street or in Washington. Low was among a new breed of teachers focused on theory. They started teaching early in their careers, after a clerkship.

“He was a wonderful teacher; he was very enthusiastic. I would say he’s pretty passionate about criminal law and it being understood and applied,” Bracey said. “Students had a great respect for him because of his obvious intellect.”

Low said the first-year criminal law course included criminal procedure when he started, and criminal procedure was not taught separately as it is today. The field of criminal procedure expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s, as more and more Supreme Court cases on the subject were decided.

“The whole idea of applying the Bill of Rights to the states was in the process of happening,” Low said. “It wasn’t necessary at that time to have a separate course in constitutional criminal procedure.”

Jeffries, who graduated from the Law School in 1972, took Low for “Criminal Law,” “Federal Courts” and a seminar on the Supreme Court.

“He was very gifted at making analytical complexity clear,” Jeffries said. He is a “genuine expert on federal criminal law and the sentencing apparatus that attends it.”

Soon after Jeffries joined the faculty he began collaborating with Low, including co-writing casebooks on criminal law, federal courts and civil rights litigation.

“He’s a wonderful colleague,” Jeffries said. “He’s the person I go to when I am analytically confused.”

Striving to Improve the Criminal Justice System

Low said his career was unconventional by modern academic standards, as it was punctuated by projects that tied into his dedication to improving the criminal justice system.

From 1965 to 1968, he served as a reporter for the Advisory Committee on Sentencing and Review, part of the American Bar Association’s Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, which was spearheaded by then-ABA president Lewis Powell Jr. (who was later to be appointed to the Supreme Court). Other participants in the project included Herbert Wechsler, a Columbia law professor known as the “father” of the Model Penal Code, and then-Circuit Court Judge Warren Burger, who became chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1969. The resulting publications proposing bar-endorsed standards in a number of areas were important ABA contributions to improvements in the criminal justice system, Low said.

He also was a consultant for the Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, which was established by Congress to rewrite federal criminal laws using the Model Penal Code and the newly revised New York Penal Code as templates. The group was also known as the Brown Commission, after its chairman, Pat Brown, the former attorney general and governor of California and the father of current California Gov. Jerry Brown.

“The commission produced an integrated and consistent proposed federal criminal codification to replace the inconsistent and, in many ways, incoherent hodgepodge of alphabetically listed offenses adopted by Congress over the years and spread throughout many volumes of the federal code,” Low said.

The Brown Commission proposals led to a decade of bipartisan federal criminal law reform efforts that ultimately failed.

“The project was almost doomed to failure from the beginning because of all of the different special interests that must be accommodated in legislation as all-encompassing as a criminal code, and as visible as it necessarily is at the federal level,” he said.

Low contributed to the legal system in other ways. He served as a consultant at the FBI National Academy in Quantico for 30 years, and from 1972 to 1982 he lectured about the Supreme Court to more than 10,000 state and local police officers, and at numerous training sessions for FBI lawyers. The focus on state and local police was part of a college credit-granting program established through a relationship between the FBI and what was then the U.Va. School of Continuing Education.

“At one point a vast majority of police chiefs in the country had gone through this program,” Low said. “What the U.S. Supreme Court did had a big impact on what they did, and so they could ask really hard questions. Dealing with them helped a lot in my teaching here.”

Leading the Law School and U.Va.

At the Law School, Low became a central figure in the school’s administration at a time when faculty managed many duties now handled by full-time staff. As assistant dean from 1965 to ’69, Low served in a role similar to that of the assistant dean for student affairs today.

“I was the person students came to when they had problems,” he said.

Then from 1969 to ’76 and again from 1989 to ’94 he was associate dean, a role similar to the vice dean today through which, among other things, he managed the curriculum.

“It’s hard today to imagine just how central Peter Low was to the operation of this institution 25 years ago,” Jeffries said. “He had so many administrative responsibilities and discharged them so well.”

In January 1994, then-U.Va. President John T. Casteen III tapped Low to become provost, the academic head of the University. In that role, Low said he oversaw the University-wide faculty tenure and promotion process and played a central role in assuring that the right people were selected to lead the various schools and other academic units of the University.

Because the University is so decentralized, Low said getting the right people into the right jobs was key to its success.

“Whether the English Department is any good is going to depend on the people in the English Department and the central administration of the College of Arts & Sciences, and not the provost,” Low said. “The academic leadership from all schools at the University comes from the faculty.”

Casteen praised Low’s work on everything from working with deans on new building projects to creating – with Leonard Sandridge, then the executive vice president and chief operating officer– new budget models and financial structures to make the best use of the University’s increased visibility and growth during that time.

“Peter was in charge in times when U.Va. was alone among the public universities in the popular top-25 rankings, when faculty work here came to be a gold standard for the nation, and when a new generation of deans came to us, largely because of Peter’s supervision of searches and his uncommon quality of listening critically to advice from faculty leaders and delivering search results that made faculty work stronger and more durable,” Casteen said. 

He added that working with Low was “powerfully rewarding.”

“The combination of intellect with the gifts of sound self-discipline and a love for the best things in life makes Peter a rare and wonderful colleague,” Casteen said.

Apart from his time as provost, Low has seen many changes at the Law School over the years, among them a quadrupling of full-time faculty, the Law School’s move from Clark Hall to North Grounds, increased diversity in a larger student body, and an explosion in the number of elective classes and adjunct faculty. (More at 50 Years at U.Va.: Professors Howard and Low Look Back at Evolution of Law School)

Turning the Page on Teaching

Though Low is retiring from teaching courses, “my life will not change very much,” he said. He will keep an office at the Law School and will continue to write.

Low’s fourth edition revision of the casebook “Criminal Law,” co-authored with Jeffries and U.Va. law professors Anne Coughlin and Richard Bonnie, will be submitted to the publisher next January. The eighth edition of his Federal Courts casebook, co-authored with Jeffries and Duke Law Professor Curtis Bradley, is currently in press and will be published in May.

He has an article coming out in the Virginia Law Review in December, written with third-year law student Ben Wood, and another planned for completion next spring to be written with second-year law student Joel Johnson. Both students took his elective “Criminal Law and the Supreme Court,” and both articles deal with issues that were developed in that course.

Wood asked Low to supervise his Law Review note, but Low suggested co-writing an article instead.

“Of course, I was totally delighted,” Wood said. “He has an encyclopedic knowledge of all these different topics that tied into the paper, so it was a great learning experience.”

Low said he will miss interacting with students. He estimates he has taught more than 5,000 over the years.

“The quality of the students here is incredible,” he said. “Even the first day of a first-year criminal law class, you’re dealing with very, very smart people, and they can challenge you with questions. Constant interaction with people of a different generation keeps you younger, no doubt about that.”

Contact: Brevy Cannon

Charles Marsh, “Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” Alfred A. Knopf.

In the decades since his execution in a German concentration camp in 1945, theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer has become the most widely read Protestant thinker of the 20th century. In a new book, “Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” University of Virginia Commonwealth Professor of Religious Studies Charles Marsh powerfully brings to life the struggles, triumphs and transformations of Bonhoeffer, the German pastor, dissident and conspirator who resisted the Nazi party until it cost him his life.

In this biography, Marsh, who founded and directs the Project on Lived Theology, draws on extensive new research to present a definitive account, both majestic and intimate, of Bonhoeffer and an incomparably authoritative reading of his work.

In his review, Baylor University professor Alan Jacobs called the book “an extraordinary account of an extraordinary life. Charles Marsh’s ‘Strange Glory’ is profoundly researched and vividly imagined. ... I can’t remember when I have read a more compelling biography.”

Marsh analyzes the pivotal moments of Bonhoeffer’s formation, including his first visit to America for 10 months in 1930, when he spent time with social reformers, Harlem churchmen and public intellectuals. The visit set the stage for Bonhoeffer’s denouncement of the Nuremburg Laws upon his return to Germany and his dangerously vocal support of the Jews and other victims of the Nazis, as he struggled in vain to fight the Reich’s takeover of the German church. Undaunted, he continued conspiring against the regime until his arrest, and continued producing his luminous theological reflections until his execution at the age of 39.

With a keen understanding of Bonhoeffer’s multifaceted writings – often misunderstood – and the imperfect man behind the saintly image, Marsh has put forward a nuanced, exhilarating and often heartrending portrait that lays bare Bonhoeffer’s flaws and inner torment, as well as the friendships and the faith that sustained and finally redeemed him.

“Throughout the work, Marsh looks for ways of revisiting old truths about Bonhoeffer and offering fresh perspectives,” the Kirkus Review said. “There is no doubt Marsh’s portrayal will infuse new controversy into discussions about Bonhoeffer for years to come.”

Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy of the University of Virginia has won the prestigious George Washington Book Prize for his examination of British generals in the American Revolution, the prize’s trio of sponsors announced Tuesday at a black-tie event held at Mount Vernon, Washington’s historic home.

O’Shaughnessy, a professor in the Corcoran Department of History and Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, received the $50,000 prize for his book “The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire.”

“This is really wonderful,” O’Shaughnessy said. “I was really surprised. The other finalists were outstanding and one of them has already won a Pulitzer Prize.”

Now in its 10th year, the Washington Prize recognizes the year’s best new books on early American history, especially those written for a broad audience. The three institutions that sponsor the prize – Washington College of Chestertown, Maryland; the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, a nonprofit organization devoted to the improvement of history education; and George Washington’s Mount Vernon – are devoted to furthering historical scholarship that contributes to the public understanding of the American past.

The Washington Prize jury praised the book as “ground-breaking” and “a major contribution to the history of the American Revolution.” 

“‘The Men Who Lost America’ is a refreshing, exhaustively researched study which should reinvigorate the historical literature on the collapse of the British Empire in North America,” said Douglas Bradburn, founding director of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon.

O’Shaughnessy’s book disputes a theory that incompetent military commanders and political leaders in Britain were to blame for the empire’s defeat during the American Revolution. Weaving together personal stories of 10 prominent men who directed the British forces, O’Shaughnessy – who holds dual British and American citizenship – uncovers the reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve their surprising victory. 

“I was born in Britain and was always very aware of the seeming neglect of the British perspective of the American Revolution,” O’Shaughnessy said. “It was generally not taught in high schools in Britain, and the British often seemed to be caricatured in the films and popular histories in the U.S. This dimension not only makes the war more fascinating, but much more intelligible and easier to comprehend.”

O’Shaughnessy edged out two other authors for the Washington Prize, one of whom was U.Va. colleague Alan Taylor, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor, whose book, “The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832,” won a Pulitzer Prize last month. That book tells the stories of slaves who joined forces with the British during the War of 1812.

“When you see a pair of professors such as Andrew and Alan in the same department, it shows the prominence of the University of Virginia in the field in early American studies,” said Paul Halliday, who chairs the Corcoran Department of History. “It also shows the strength of our relationship with Monticello.”

Monticello, operated by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, is the historic home of Thomas Jefferson, founder of the University. Taylor researched some of his book at the foundation’s Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, which O'Shaughnessy directs.

O’Shaughnessy’s book previously won the New York Historical Society’s annual American History Book Prize, the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award for histories of the Revolutionary period, the 2013 Great Midwest Book Festival award in the regional literature category and the 2014 Cincinnati History Prize, sponsored by the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey. It was voted best book of the year by the New York Roundtable of the American Revolution, was short-listed for the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize for Military History, received an honorable mention for the 2013 American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence and was nominated for the British Broadcasting Corporation’s History Magazine Book of the Month.

O’Shaughnessy’s next book will examine persuasion in the American Revolution and how rhetoric was used as a tool of war by the British, the Loyalists and the Patriots.

Consumers frequently pay too much for retirement plans by choosing more expensive funds for their investments, University of Virginia law professor Quinn Curtis and Yale law professor Ian Ayres reveal in a new paper that will be published in the Yale Law Journal.

In “Beyond Diversification: The Pervasive Problem of Excessive Fees and ‘Dominated Funds’ in 401(k) Plans,” the professors analyzed more than 3,000 401(k) plans with more than $120 billion in assets. Their research revealed that, for many investors, costs associated with the most expensive funds eat up returns. Their paper explores potential reforms that could help consumers make better choices.

Curtis’ research focuses on empirical law and finance and includes work on mutual funds, corporate governance and mortgages. He holds a Ph.D. in finance and a J.D. from Yale.

Q. Can you tell me about the genesis of this paper?

A. The costs of savings in 401(k) plans have been drawing a lot of attention from policymakers the last several years. I’ve written before on the regulation of mutual fund fees, and so this is a natural extension of that work, since part of the cost of investing in a 401(k) plan is paying the fees on the funds in the plan menu.

The goals of this project are to provide some data on what investors are paying to participate in 401(k) plans, how the design of plan menus affects investor choices and how the legal standards and regulatory environment surrounding these plans could be changed to improve outcomes for investors.

What we find is that, for a lot of plans, and particularly for smaller plans, the costs can be quite high. Moreover, a lot of the costs that investors incur are due to choices that investors make. In a lot of cases, investors have lower-cost options, but pass them up. To some degree, it is likely that this is a result of the way these plans are structured. Employers are charged with constructing the plan menus, and they may rely for advice on how to do so from advisers who manage the funds and have a stake in the fees. The law doesn’t do enough to mitigate this conflict of interest.

Q. What are “dominated” funds, and what is the consequence of including them in plan menus?

A. We define “dominated funds” as funds that are substantially more expensive than either similar funds in the plan menu or similar funds in the marketplace and that don’t contribute substantially to diversifying the plan menu. Investors can get the risk exposure they want by holding other options in the plan menu at lower cost, and the large fee differential suggests that the dominated funds are a poor option.

The problem is that we know that investors tend to invest in the options they are offered, even when they’d be better off passing on some, so including a dominated fund in the menu means that some investors are going to take that choice and end up worse off.

Q. In the paper you suggest that the Department of Labor and the courts could do more to improve consumers’ choices. How?

A. The biggest problem is that the law doesn’t do enough to encourage well-designed menus. Plan sponsors have a fiduciary duty to plan participants, but that duty is limited when investors are harmed by their own choices. This means that plan sponsors must give their investors some good choices, but so long as they do that, many courts will find that they’ve done their job, and if investors are harmed because they select high-cost funds, then that’s the responsibility of the investor.

Our argument is that this is a pernicious approach. Plan sponsors shouldn’t be on the hook for every decision investors make, but they should have a duty to assemble a menu that doesn’t contain pitfalls. Each choice should be defensible as reasonable.

There are other changes that we should consider as well: Many plans currently offer investors default options, but there is no legal requirement that these default options be low-cost. That’s a reasonable change. It would also be helpful for the Department of Labor to set a cost threshold to identify plans that have high costs. Our view is that investors shouldn’t be stuck in those plans and should have an option to easily roll over into other accounts where they would have access to lower-cost options. Finally, we should consider whether unrestricted choice over the menu is desirable. We suggest that investors could be required to demonstrate some financial sophistication before opting into high-cost choices.

Q. What might plan administrators themselves do to improve choices for consumers?

A. There are a couple of ways that plans could improve. The obvious one is to add more low-cost options. The less obvious way is to eliminate dominated options from plan menus. It’s not enough just to give investors some good choices; each choice should be included in the menu for a reason.

Q. Consumers make choices with downsides all the time – getting the double-cheeseburger with fries instead of a salad at a fast-food restaurant, for example. Why should it be different when it comes to choosing retirement plans?

A. It’s an interesting analogy, because there have been efforts to help consumers make better fast-food choices by putting calorie counts on the menu, for example. So even in that context, there seems to be some recognition that people might make different choices with better information.

But there’s an important difference between the choice of a burger or salad and the choice between high- and low-cost funds. In the fast-food analogy, people are choosing between choices with real tradeoffs: flavor versus calories. That’s a choice that turns on their personal preferences. When we look at dominated funds in a plan menu, there’s not a real tradeoff: It’s a choice between an option that costs more and will, in all likelihood, deliver worse performance, and a choice that costs less and will offer better performance. To run with the analogy, a high-cost fund, on a menu with low-cost options in the same investing style, is like a burger with more calories than a salad. And, what’s more, some people probably would prefer a salad to a burger, even if they had the same calories, but people saving for retirement are all looking to get the best return for the level of risk they are willing to tolerate. It’s a context much more amenable to intervention.

Finally, more and more people are relying on 401(k) savings as their primary source of retirement income. That means the stakes are high, both for individuals and for society.

Q. You found that in 16 percent of the 401(k) plans you analyzed, for young workers, the fees charged in excess of an index fund entirely consume the tax benefit of investing in the plan.

A. Yes, we found that there are plans where, even if you minimized fees, you could avoid enough fees in a low-cost, tax-efficient exchange-traded fund to offset the loss of the tax-favored treatment of 401(k) plans if you are far from retirement, so that the fee savings compound for a long time. In these plans, even if you are quite sophisticated, there are not enough good choices to avoid paying a lot in fees.

Q. What information should consumers be using to evaluate what to invest in?

A. Well, allocating a 401(k) portfolio is challenging for a lot of investors. They have to understand the types of funds, how risky the funds are and how to balance risk across funds. But a lot of investors pay too much attention to past returns and not enough attention to fees. There’s little evidence that eye-popping mutual fund performance persists from year-to-year, but fees are usually pretty stable and are a constant drag on a portfolio.

For writing “lyrical poetry that dances and sings off the page” and for being “a passionate advocate for cultural and literary diversity,” Rita Dove, Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia, received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Yale University and those complimentary words from its president, Peter Salovey.

It was the 25th honorary doctorate Dove has received. She and 11 other individuals were recognized for achieving distinction in their fields and received honorary degrees at Yale’s commencement ceremony on May 19.

Among Dove’s fellow 2014 honorees were Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web; Daniel Kahneman, 2002 Nobel laureate in economics; Joseph Polisi, president of The Juilliard School; Michael Posner, the U.S. State Department’s top human rights official from 2009-13; actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith; bluegrass musician Ralph Stanley; Ahmed Zewail, 1999 Nobel laureate in chemistry; and eminent medical researcher Huda Zoghbi.

In presenting the degree to Dove, Salovey also said, “You have communicated your own love of books to others through your writing, your outreach and your example. You have not kept quiet in noisy times, but rather have spoken out in clear and convincing verse, showing us the power of poetry to transform and transcend.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winner and former U.S. poet laureate has garnered many awards, including the National Medal of Arts from President Obama in 2012. Dove, who joined the U.Va. faculty in 1989, is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Her ninth and most recent poetry collection, “Sonata Mulattica,” came out in 2009, and she edited the 2011 “Penguin Anthology of 20th-Century American Poetry.”

On June 2, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will announce draft regulations under the Clean Air Act that will set the stage for the 50 states to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from electric power plants.

Vivian Thomson, an associate professor of environmental sciences and politics at the University of Virginia and author of a new book, “Sophisticated Interdependence in Climate Policy: Federalism in the United States, Brazil, and Germany,” is available to discuss the EPA’s decisions. She can be reached at vthomson@virginia.edu.

Thomson was a member and vice chair of the State Air Pollution Control Board in Virginia between 2002 and 2010, an appointee of Virginia Govs. Mark Warner and Timothy Kaine, and also has been senior air pollution policy analyst at the EPA.

Thomson’s book offers a framework for climate change policy in the U.S., acknowledging the crucial role of coherent state-federal regulations in a nation of regions with often disparate political, cultural and economic contexts.

“The states have long worked with EPA to control regional or local air pollution under the Clean Air Act, but we are in uncharted waters because of climate change’s global scale and also because some states have forged ahead of the national government in the climate and renewable energy arena,” she says.

In her book, Thomson frames state-national Clean Air Act partnerships so as to intertwine climate protection, energy security, fiscal discipline, renewable energy, environmental justice and energy diversification while integrating the constraints and opportunities faced by the states into the plans approved by the EPA. She also connects domestic actions with those in Germany and Brazil, powerhouse countries that also have federal systems.

“Cross-country comparisons can stimulate new ways of thinking and help foster international collaboration,” she says.

She notes that Germany is a longtime leader in climate change policy and renewable energy.

“These policy choices have gone hand-in-hand with economic growth that outstrips that in the U.S. on a per capita basis,” she says, noting that between 1990 and 2000 Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions per capita dropped by 26 percent, while its GDP per capita expanded by 36 percent. In the same interval, U.S. per capita GDP grew at 31 percent, and greenhouse gas emissions per capita decreased by just 2 percent.

Alan Brody is exploring new ways of teaching music – and he’s drumming up student enthusiasm for other cultures in the process.

Brody, who graduated from the University of Virginia in December as a physics and music double major, received a University Award for Projects in the Arts last year, which he used it to expand how African music is taught.

He conducted clinics with the U.Va. Arts Mentors group, Tandem Friends School in Charlottesville and for students at Brandeis University.

“We learned the drumming, dancing and singing of the Ewe people of Ghana and Togo, as well as singing of the BaAka people from the Central African Republic,” Brody said. “Non-Western music study leads to inter-cultural understanding and performance possibilities that make for a more well-rounded musician and human being.”

He cited Ewe drumming as a great example.

“Ewe drumming is not complete without an ensemble of drums, and each drum plays its own unique rhythm,” Brody said. “This feature allows for new analogies to Western music, such as a different understanding of ‘heterophonic music,’ or several voices playing simultaneously, but with contrasting rhythms and pitches, and creates analogies to extra-musical concepts about conversation and space.”

Brody, 22, of Arlington, said everyone participates in Ewe musical events.

“Participation does not only take the form of what a foreign eye may deem as performance, such as drumming, dancing or singing, but also includes clapping, chatting, laughing, many things that could be considered noise, and more,” he said. “Whatever takes place in the context of the musical event is part of the performance. This idea outlines how radically different the audience is treated between cultures and is grounds for critical discussion.”

The trick, he said, is being able to convey the essence of something that is very different from that with which his students are familiar.

“The important results came from discovering effective teaching methods for non-Western music, as well as ways to include new technology and discussion as part of the curriculum,” he said.

Brody recorded the instruments one by one and played them back for the group as members learned dancing and singing. He controlled the playback through an application on his iPhone.

“This allowed me to be involved as a dancer and not be stuck behind the computer during the clinic,” Brody said. “Finally, Nintendo Wii remotes were used and programmed so that students holding the Wii remotes and dancing would affect the sounds based on their movement.”

Over the course of the project, Brody unearthed multiple perspectives, or what he called ”pluralisms,” in regard to teaching, learning, performing, discussing and maintaining the learning environment of the clinics.

The several distinct rhythms in the drum ensemble exemplified the multiple perspectives within the learning and performing processes, he said.

“The coexisting perspectives were a positive discovery,” he said. “In the case of music learning, training the participant to perceive two or more simultaneous parts highlights interdependence of individual rhythms in Ewe music and in BaAka singing.”

Brody, who performed as a dancer and technologist in the Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble, U.Va’s computer music band, is a “unique and highly capable musician,” said Matthew Burtner, associate professor in the McIntire Department of Music and Brody’s adviser on the project.

“Through dance, music and technology, Alan created an impressive educational platform and community outreach project,” Burtner said. “He is fun to work with, infinitely energetic, and I admire his focus on ways that higher education can positively serve our society.”

Internationally renowned writer, poet, activist and Medal of Freedom winner Maya Angelou, 86, died today at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C.

University of Virginia experts released the following statements about the passing of Angelou.

• University of Virginia Commonwealth Professor Rita Dove, a friend and colleague of Angelou’s, was U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995 and Special Consultant in Poetry for the Library of Congress bicentennial from 1999 to 2000. She served as Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. She wrote:

“Maya Angelou was indeed a phenomenal woman – rising from the ashes of a childhood that would have rendered many of us mute and enraged, she made her way in a world that all too often despised her kind – a black woman, tall, fierce and most fearsome of all, unafraid.

“All of this is chronicled in the six volumes of her landmark autobiography – most notably its first volume, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.’ Now children read sections of it in school.  As my grandmother would have said had she met her: ‘Girl, you done done something!’

“I have encountered so many people for whom her poetry has been a balm and even a salvation: This is no mean feat, muttering critics aside. And though I would not count myself among the most ardent fans of her poetry, I admired her inaugural recitation for President Clinton, ‘On the Pulse of Morning,’ as a masterful exemplar of the occasional poem. It manages that most difficult trick: to be both simple and deep, appreciated by the person on the street upon first hearing, and yet containing riches upon closer, deeper reading – complex images, poignant litanies, a trajectory from the dinosaurs to the moment we were celebrating: a new President, a new era. 

“I first met Maya around 1990 when she came to speak in Charlottesville, where I teach at the University of Virginia. I managed to squeak past security to the green room a few minutes before her gig. I was uneasy, unsure of my reception: After all, I was part of a new generation of African-American poets, a ‘literary’ aesthete in the eyes of many who had stamped out a space for Black literature in the ’60s. Would she brand me a sell-out, a literary snob? I knocked on the doorjamb and announced myself; she turned from the table, smiled and enveloped me in an embrace. 

“Maya Angelou was a beacon to many – poets and artists of all kinds, those young protégées eager to make a mark, those older and perhaps already discouraged. Her autobiographical books were startling in their honesty but most importantly, also dazzling in their artistry: ‘Here I am,’ they proclaimed; ‘here we are,’ they whispered. Being an icon is often a lonely, thankless job: envy and worship are two sides of the same ambivalent coin. But Maya wore the mantle with a dignity and joy that emboldened and enlivened those who knew her story: she understood the hunger for role models providing a window onto a world many had not been able to imagine. She did us proud.”

• University of Virginia Professor of English and Creative Writing Lisa Russ Spaar is an award-winning poet and writer and former Guggenheim Fellow (2009 to 2010). She wrote:

“The passing of the great Maya Angelou calls to mind Adrienne Rich’s paraphrase of John Donne: ‘Any woman’s death diminishes me.’ Angelou’s death reminds me, too, however, of the inestimable ways in which, by her work and personhood, she enlarged the realms of literature and possibility. She was and will remain an inspiring, gracious force in this world.”

Executive Vice President and Provost John Simon today announced the appointment of Elizabeth K. Meyer to a two-year term as dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture.

Meyer, the Merrill D. Peterson Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University, begins serving in the new role on July 15.

“Beth Meyer is widely respected and admired by her colleagues at the University and in her profession,” Simon said. “I am grateful for her willingness to provide this leadership at a critical time for the School of Architecture. Her experience and deep institutional knowledge make her uniquely qualified to create an immediate and lasting impact.”

Meyer will succeed Dean Kim Tanzer, Edward E. Elson Professor of Architecture, who is not seeking reappointment. An internationally renowned design theorist and critic, Meyer will continue teaching during the two-year appointment, and plans to return full-time to that role at the conclusion of her term.

“The University of Virginia has one of the nation’s finest architecture schools,” she said. “I am honored to be asked to lead a school I’ve been associated with, on and off, for 40 years. Working with our accomplished and ambitious department chairs, I’m eager to give shape and support to the imaginative and intellectual culture within the school that has been re-energized by a dozen recent faculty hires.”

Meyer joined the U.Va. faculty in 1993 after working in two landscape architectural practices, Hanna/Olin (now OLIN) and EDAW, and teaching for four years at Harvard University. She has chaired the Landscape Architecture Department and directed the Graduate Landscape Architecture Program.

She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in landscape architecture from U.Va., as well as a Master of Arts in historic preservation from Cornell University. Meyer is a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects. For the last three years, “DesignIntelligence” has recognized her as one of the most-admired design educators in the United States.

“Beth Meyer is a nationally known designer, award-winning teacher and a proven administrator whose commitment to the School of Architecture and the University are unwavering,” said Suzanne Moomaw, associate professor of urban and environmental planning. “With the school poised and ready to reach new heights in teaching, research and global impact, Beth is an ideal leader to build on our strengths and forge new opportunities.”

In 2012, President Obama appointed Meyer to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, and she serves as the only landscape architect on the seven-member panel. The commission provides design review for the National Mall and Monumental Core, as well as major public buildings and public spaces within our nation’s capital. Meyer has served on numerous design juries, including the 2012 Trust for the National Mall competition for the redesign of three prominent locations, including The Union Square, the Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument grounds and Constitution Gardens. She also served on the MVVA team that won the “City+Arch+River” design competition for St. Louis’ Gateway Arch Grounds in 2011.

In addition to her successes in the classroom and as a practitioner, Meyer has earned a national reputation for her writings in scholarly and professional journals challenging conventional thinking about the distinctions between design, sustainability and preservation. Her scholarship has prompted critical self-analysis and exploration of new conceptual frameworks for design practice in the U.S. and abroad as well as at U.Va.

“Recently, we have initiated several curricular and research collaborations with colleagues across the University – including digital practices, urban dynamics and critical cultural landscape approaches – in pursuit of creating alterative modes of design and planning practice as well as speculative models for future cities and communities,” Meyer said. “This is only possible because of the long-standing, and unparalleled, transdisciplinary culture that exists in Campbell Hall. I am optimistic that the next two years will be a period of tremendous innovation as we form new creative habits and collaborative relationships amongst ourselves, and with colleagues across the University and beyond.”

School of Architecture FoundationPresident Paul S. Weinschenk, head of the retail division at the Washington Real Estate Investment Trust and a 1987 graduate of the Architecture School, said the foundation’s Board of Trustees looks forward to working with Meyer to continue building on the school’s successes and positive momentum.

“Beth Meyer has a decades-long relationship with the school,” he said. “She is an accomplished and respected academic, a leader in the school and in her field of landscape architecture. The Foundation Board will work closely with her as dean over the next two years to continue generating financial support for the school and further expanding on its many strengths.”

When Alexander G. “Sandy” Gilliam Jr. retires Monday from the University of Virginia, he’ll be taking an encyclopedic knowledge of Grounds with him.

Gilliam, whose official title is currently “University Protocol and History Officer,” has deep ties to U.Va.: he graduated in 1955, has worked here since 1975, and members of his family have been attending since 1829, four years after it opened.

For more on his time at the University, see a recent article on his tenure or a 2004 feature on him.

Before he departs, Gilliam agreed to answer a few questions about University history collected via U.Va.’s Facebook page. Some of the questions and his answers are below:

Johnny Cates: Is there a list of Seven Society members that have died? What are some of the perks for being a member?

A: Not that I know of, although the current ringer of the carillon in the University Chapel (the bells, which were a gift of the Seven Society, are tolled when a member of the Seven Society dies) has kept an informal list of deaths for the last eight or so years. As deaths of Sevens are announced in the alumni magazine, it would be easy – though a little time-consuming – to construct a list.

As for perks of membership: The Seven Society is noted for its largely anonymous good works; I think a perk would be knowing that you have done something worthwhile for the University, but something for which you will not receive credit in your lifetime.

Terrie Forst Griggs: Best book for weird U.Va. facts or most unusual U.Va. finds to look for on Grounds?

A: I don’t know of any book of this sort. Tour guides and others often talk about “weird” facts, but they usually are not facts, but something the guide has made up as a good story. There are lots of good true stories about the University, but most of them are in memoirs and reminiscences by former students and faculty. Which means you have to dig a little.

James Watson Head: What is the best BBQ in Petersburg, Va.?

A: As Mr. Head knows very well, it is King’s, which not only is the best BBQ in Petersburg but the best BBQ there is.

William H. Rianhard: What of Jefferson's early curriculum is available to study today?

A: It would be hard to say that such and such a course, offered in 1825, is still offered today. I think you can say, safely, that all of what was taught then is taught now, though there have been tremendous advances in most fields, particularly the sciences. Jefferson laid down a basic curriculum that is the foundation of the University’s curriculum of today.

Nancy Premen: Tell us about the Secret Societies – how they came to be, how members are chosen, what they do. Are there only two secret ones – Seven Society and Purple Shadows? Are they only at U.Va.?

A: There are only two real secret societies, the Seven Society and the Purple Shadows. Nothing is known publicly of their origins, except that the Sevens seem to have appeared early in the 20th century and the Shadows in the 1960s. A problem around here these days is that the term “secret society” is used carelessly; for instance, I have heard, on occasion, the Jefferson Society and the Glee Club called “secret societies.”

There is a third group which I hear of – or from – occasionally (they presented me with a cup several years ago), but know nothing about: the Monticello Society.

As to how members of secret societies are chosen: since their doings are secret, we don’t really know. I would assume that new members are chosen, in some way, by current members.

Adam Bergman: Longest-serving faculty member? Why/how did the Cavaliers become our mascot?

A: Longest-serving present member of the faculty? Gosh, I don’t know. The Provost’s Office probably could work this out. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, several names come to mind: John B. Minor, Professor of Law; William M. Thornton, professor and first dean of Engineering; Schele de Vere, “Modern Languages”; and Francis H. Smith, Mathematics and “Natural Philosophy” (roughly, biology and geology).

The name Cavaliers, I think, is a product of about the 1930s. It refers to the royalist party in the English Civil War in the 17th century and by extension to Virginians – who by and large remained loyal to the Crown in that war.

Todd W. Eakes: I had the pleasure of meeting Sandy my fourth year, and although I don't want to take anything away from any of my great professors, the half-hour meeting and talking with him was definitely the highlight of my time at the University. I guess my question is: How do you get that job?  Best wishes Sandy!

A: Many thanks!  Come back and we can continue the conversation.

Louise Dudley: When were the pavilion columns whitewashed over the original sand color? Do you think they should go back?

A: I don’t know – they have been white in living memory and white at least since the 1890s when photographs became accurate enough to guess at the colors. The white comes from whitewash and as you will remember from your years at the University, most every spring in preparation for Finals, the columns are whitewashed, so there are layers and layers of whitewash, almost as thick as the layers of paint on the Beta Bridge. I am so used to them being white that I would vote for status quo.

My favorite comment on the columns is Gertrude Stein’s reply to, I think, a reporter who talked to her after she lectured here in the 1930s; she was asked for her impressions of the University and she replied, “And there were columns, and columns, and columns, and columns, and columns (etc.)”

Cherie Kurland: Why are there two stars of David in front of Peabody Hall?

A: My theory is that they are purely decorative – as you know, the two Stars of David flank another piece of decorative brickwork, “PH”, which I assume stands for Peabody Hall. On the eve of World War I, when Peabody was built, few in Charlottesville would have understood the political significance of the Star of David.

I think the decorative brick medallion in the pavement at the head of Poe Alley – it shows the raven of Poe’s “Raven” perched on the bust of Pallas Athene, as in Poe’s poem – probably dates from the same period and perhaps was done by the same hand.

Charles Herbek: Although “Ten Thousand Voices” is the official alma mater [song], how and when did “The Good Ol’ Song” come to prominence? And why were there no seats placed in the northern section of Scott Stadium when first built?

A: I think “The Good Ol’ Song” was prominent by the time of the First World War. You are too young to have heard of a big band called Guy Lombardo and The Royal Canadians, but they were popular in my parents’ time at the University and popular enough in mine for them to have been hired to play at Midwinters one year when I was an undergraduate. Lombardo’s signature tune was “The Good Ol’ Song” (in my childhood, they always played on New Year’s Eve on the radio from some glamorous place in New York); people who didn’t know better assumed it was “Auld Lang Syne,” but apparently he adopted it when he was playing for a dance here around 1930 when students asked him to play it as his closing number. He did and was so taken with it that he played it on every gig thereafter.

As for Scott Stadium – there were no stands at the south end either, at least until fairly recently, probably because there was no need for them until the University began growing in the 1960s.

Carrie Cabell: Why do commencement ceremonies face Old Cabell Hall and not the Rotunda?

A: The Commencement Exercises, in more or less their modern form, date from President Alderman in 1905. They were held in Cabell Hall until the McIntire Amphitheatre was built in 1919. President Darden moved them from there to the Lawn in about 1948. But during the Amphitheatre period, there was still an academic procession down the Lawn with a turn to the right on the great crosswalk and from there to the Amphitheatre.

Stephen Wolfe: Who are the current members of the Seven Society?

A: That is known only by the Seven Society

Jim Spencer: What is the history of the serpentine walls? My great-grandfather, a native of Charlottesville, was very proud of being a brick mason with the skills to repair and maintain them.

A: They are a Jeffersonian invention, thought to have been inspired by something similar he saw in England. A visitor from Holland 20 or so years ago corrected me and said something similar is at a country house – which Jefferson is supposed to have visited – in the Netherlands. He sent me a paper about it, but it was in Dutch, which I can read laboriously and, I’m afraid, inaccurately.

UVA Parents: Are there any secret rooms or passages the public doesn’t know about on Grounds?

A: Not that I know of, but preliminary soundings (for the restoration work that has begun on the Rotunda) in the Lower East Oval Room this past year revealed a good-sized chemistry lab setup behind one wall and forgotten all these years. And then there was the folklore common in my time that there was a secret entrance from the steam tunnels to the dormitory part of McKim Hall (McKim housed nursing classrooms as well as the student dormitory for the Nursing School). People (male) claimed to have found it and made use of it. None of us believed them.

Since graduating from the University of Virginia in 2005, Kim Dylla has done a lot of things: played music, helped build a digital re-creation of ancient Rome and, most recently, launched a business creating custom-made clothing for rock and metal bands ranging from Journey to Machine Head.

She recently answered a few questions about her time at U.Va. and her clothing venture, Kylla Custom Rock Wear.

Q: What was your major and when did you graduate from U.Va.?

A. I majored in studio art with a minor in computer science. I was an Echols Scholar. I graduated in 2005, but I did a year post-baccalaureate fellowship with the Aunspaugh program in the art department.

Q: After graduation you also worked in digital humanities at U.Va.’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, or IATH. Are there any creative similarities between what you did then and what you do now?

Dylla uses vintage and modern materials to craft her stage-wear. (Photos by Sanjay Suchak, University of Virginia)

A. I think the creative similarities between my two careers lie in the ability to integrate skillsets from multiple seemingly juxtaposed fields. At IATH, we merged the worlds of computer science and classical archaeology. With Kylla Custom Rock Wear, I tie in skills from the fashion industry and the music industry. I still use the Web design and Web programming skills directly in my business now as well.

Q: Tell us about the Rome project you worked on at IATH. 

A. “Rome Reborn” is a large 3-D scholarly model of the entire city of ancient Rome at the period of Constantine, the height of its civic development. Its purpose was to be a visual knowledge representation for all of the archaeological data present. It was a challenge technically because of the sheer amount of 3-D data we were dealing with and trying to render all of that in real time and securely to protect intellectual property.

I worked mainly with integrating the entire model and developing the various real-time display interfaces we used, from OpenSceneGraph at the beginning to IBM iRT, to Mental Images's Reality Server, to Unity.

Q: Now you make custom clothing for rock and metal bands at Kylla Custom Rock Wear. What’s your favorite place in Charlottesville to find materials?

See more of Dylla's work at kyllacustomrockwear.com. 

A. Goodwill and Salvation Army, I hoard salvaged leather and denim from thrift stores!

Q: What advice would you give to a current U.Va. student interested in this kind of career? 

A. Make yourself a Renaissance person – learn lots about technology, business, art, manufacturing skills, languages, etc. Most importantly, teach yourself to focus, work hard, manage your time and network with other humans. Always be open to new ideas, partnerships and possibilities.

Q: Favorite building on Grounds?

Each piece is custom-made for clients. 

A. I spent most of my time at the Digital Media Lab at Clemons Library and the basement labs in Olsson Hall. The art department was in temporary trailers for most of my time there. I think my favorite place on Grounds to study, though, was the old graveyard near old dorms. How Goth of me.

Q: What’s next for you?

A. I’m in Europe all summer networking at the big music festivals to try to see what new clients we can dress! I hope that by next year we can have a manufacturing operation off the ground to provide some high-end merchandise for our bands and partner festivals.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has appointed Roscoe C. Roberts, an experienced attorney with years of service in the public sector – including higher education – as general counsel to the University of Virginia.

Roberts, who has served as legal counsel for Virginia State University since 2003, will join U.Va. in October. He succeeds Paul Forch, who retired as general counsel in August.

“I am delighted that Roscoe Roberts will assume the position of general counsel to the University and I look forward to working with him,” U.Va. Rector George Keith Martin said. “Roscoe enjoys an outstanding reputation as a lawyer. Indeed, he is regarded as a ‘trusted adviser.’ Based on the breadth of his experience, I am confident he will continue the tradition of excellence established by his predecessor, Paul Forch. I also thank Paul for his exemplary work on behalf of U.Va. and the commonwealth.”

President Teresa A. Sullivan also highlighted Roberts’ experience in welcoming him to the University.

“The legal concerns of operating a research university with a comprehensive Medical Center are becoming more and more complex,” Sullivan said. “Roscoe Roberts will bring extensive knowledge and experience in higher education and in his work in the Attorney General’s office in Richmond to his work as general counsel for U.Va.”

Herring described Roberts as an excellent fit for the U.Va. post.

“The University of Virginia requires a broad and complicated set of legal services to fulfill its mission, and I am confident that Roscoe is the right person to take on this role,” he said. “His many years of work and leadership on higher education and health care issues in the Office of Attorney General make him uniquely qualified to meet the needs of a world-class university operating an expansive medical center. He is inheriting a great team and a great legacy from Paul Forch, whose four decades of service to the Office of Attorney General, including nearly 20 years as counsel at the University of Virginia, have been exemplary.”

A 1978 graduate of the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William & Mary, Roberts began his career that year with the Petersburg Legal Aid Society. He served as counsel in civil matters in the cities of Petersburg, Colonial Heights, Hopewell and the counties of Prince George, Dinwiddie, Surry and Charles City.

In 1981, Roberts was named assistant attorney general for the commonwealth. His duties included prosecution of consumer fraud cases, representation in direct appeals of criminal cases, drafting legislation and redistricting of House and Senate districts of the General Assembly. He also has served as legal counsel to various Virginia institutions of higher education, including James Madison University, Christopher Newport University, George Mason University and Virginia State.

As an assistant attorney general in 1997, Roberts worked in the Health Services Section of the Office of the Attorney General. There he served as legal counsel to the State Health Commissioner, the Virginia Department of Health and Virginia’s health regulatory boards in the Department of Health Professions, and the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation. Roberts was promoted to senior assistant attorney general in 2003.

Roberts earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Wake Forest University in 1975. After law school, his continuing education included attendance at the Trial Advocacy Collegeat the U.Va. School of Law, and the London Business School in England.

“The University of Virginia is a great institution of higher learning and I am honored to have been selected as university counsel by Attorney General Mark Herring,” Roberts said. “I am looking forward to working with the Board of Visitors, President Sullivan and her administration, and my colleagues and fellow attorneys in the Office of University Counsel to help advance the work of this tremendous public asset.”

Award-winning Civil War historian Gary W. Gallagher will speak at the University of Virginia’s annual Fall Convocation, to be held Oct. 31 at 2 p.m. in the John Paul Jones Arena.

The ceremony will include the awarding of Intermediate Honors to the top 20 percent of undergraduate students who have completed at least 60 hours of coursework in their first two years. Also, two members of the University community will receive the Thomas Jefferson Awards, the highest honor given by the University. Fall Convocation traditionally kicks off Family Weekend.

The Public Occasions Subcommittee of the Commencement and Convocations Committee each year provides the president with a list of potential speakers for Fall Convocation. Gallagher, a U.Va. faculty member since 1998 and a much-sought-after expert on Civil War topics who has led popular battlefield tours, emerged as this year’s choice.

“I am deeply honored to be invited to speak at the Fall Convocation in 2014,” said Gallagher, John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War. “I see it as a splendid opportunity to engage with members of the University community within a context of acknowledging unusual achievement.”

Gallagher is the author or editor of more than 30 books, including most recently “Becoming Confederates: Paths to a New National Loyalty” (2013), “The Union War” (2011) and “Causes Won, Lost and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War” (2008). He has also published more than 150 articles in scholarly journals and popular historical magazines.

His many awards for research and writing include the Tom Watson Brown Book Prize for the best book in Civil War studies, the Lincoln Prize (shared with three others), the Laney Prize for the best book on the Civil War and the Fletcher Pratt Award for the best nonfiction book on the Civil War. 

Gallagher has a longstanding interest in the field of historic preservation. He was a founder and first president of the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites (the first national organization of its kind) and has served on the board of directors of the Civil War Trust.

He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Adams State College in Colorado in 1972 and his master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1977 and 1982, respectively. After serving as a National Archives archivist for nearly a decade, he joined the Department of History at Penn State University in 1986.

Gallagher has taught at U.Va. since 1998 and has been the John L. Nau III Professor in History of the American Civil War in the Corcoran Department of History since 1999. He also held the Cavaliers’ Distinguished Teaching Professorship, the University’s highest teaching award, from 2010 to 2012. He is a recipient of the 2013 Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education, awarded by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

In 2013, Gallagher joined U.Va.’s Miller Center as a senior faculty associate, where he supervised the center’s new Historical Presidency lecture series, an initiative that offers perspective on how presidential leadership has evolved over time.

He recently finished an online textbook on the Civil War and Reconstruction titled “The American War: An Interactive History.” He is also the co-editor and co-author of “Lens of War: Exploring Iconic Photographs of the Civil War,” which will be published next spring.

U.Va. President Teresa A. Sullivan invites all faculty members who are not in classes or meetings to participate in the academic procession and ceremony. Although academic dress is not required, regalia can be obtained through the University Bookstore at 434-924-3721. The deadline for reserving caps, gowns and hoods is Oct. 3.

Nominations for the Thomas Jefferson Awards remain open until Sept. 25.

For information on Fall Convocation, visit the website of the Office of Major Events or call 434-982-3099.

Hannah Elizabeth Graham, a second-year student in the University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences, disappeared in the early morning hours of Sept. 13. According to police reports, after leaving a party in a private residence in the area of 14^th Street and Wertland Street, she walked north on 10^th Street to Preston Avenue, east on Preston Avenue to Market Street, then south on Second Street to Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. She was last seen on a surveillance tape at 1:08 a.m. on the Downtown Mall, and sent a text message to friends around 1:20 a.m., reporting that she was lost.

Graham, 18, is 5-foot-11 with blue eyes, light brown hair and freckles. She was last seen wearing a metallic black crop top with mesh cut outs and black pants.

Anyone with information regarding Graham is asked to contact the Charlottesville Police Department at 434-295-3851. Police are offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to Graham's location. 

You can also follow the University's Twitter feed and Facebook page.

On this page:

Oct. 4, 2014

• VIDEO: Statement from John and Sue Graham regarding the continuing search for their daughter, Hannah. (Provided by the City of Charlottesville) See full text here.

Sept. 26, 2014

• Message from President Sullivan to Students

Sept. 23, 2014

• Message from President Sullivan Regarding University Community Safety

Sept. 21, 2014

•   Letter from President Sullivan to the University Community

• Statement Read by John and Susan Graham at Press Conference Today  

Sept. 19, 2014

• Information for U.Va. Parents from the Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer
• CAPS holding weekend hours to support students
• Stay Safe This Weekend Message from U.Va. Student Council President Jalen Ross
• Message from John and Sue Graham to the University Community

Sept. 18, 2014

• Volunteers can help in search for Hannah Graham

Sept. 17, 2014

• Statement from the Parents of Hannah Graham, Read at Charlottesville Police Press Briefing
• Message from U.Va. Student Council President Jalen Ross
• Message from President Sullivan to Alumni
• Message from President Sullivan to Parents of U.Va. Students

Sept. 16, 2014

• Statement From Family of Hannah Graham
• Message from President Sullivan to Faculty and Staff
• Message from Dean of Students Allen Groves on Community Resources and Safety

Sept. 15, 2014

• President's Message Regarding Missing University Student
• Message to Parents from the Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer
• Message to the University Community from the Chief of University Police

Oct. 4, 2014

Statement from Sue and John Graham Regarding the Ongoing Search for their Daughter Hannah, Oct. 4, 2014

“My name is Sue Graham. At my side is my husband John. As you know we are Hannah's parents. I will now read a brief statement.

Firstly, we would like again to express our enormous gratitude to all those who have been involved in the search for Hannah, including the police, the professional search teams, the people staffing the telephone tip line, UVa students, our friends, neighbours and work colleagues as well as the citizens of Charlottesville and the surrounding area. We would also like to thank the many, many kind people who have supported our family during this terrible ordeal through words, deeds, thoughts and prayers. We also owe our sincere thanks to the City of Charlottesville, the University of Virginia and the concerned citizens who have contributed a total of $100,000 to the reward which is being offered for information leading to Hannah's return. We have been overwhelmed by the generosity of you all.

As you are all aware, an individual has been charged with the abduction of our beloved daughter Hannah. However, despite extensive search efforts, no trace of Hannah has been found since she disappeared in the early hours of Saturday September the 13th, now more than three weeks ago. The police have received thousands of tips, and to each one of you who made the effort to call in with information, we express our heartfelt thanks. We also thank all of you who have actively searched your properties and reported the results to the police. However, despite all your efforts, Hannah is still missing.

Somebody listening to me today either knows where Hannah is, or knows someone who has that information. We appeal to you to come forward and tell us where Hannah can be found. John has already said that this is every parent's worst nightmare. That is true, but it is also a nightmare for our son, James, for Hannah's grandparents and other members of our family, as well as for all of Hannah's many friends here in Charlottesville and beyond. Please, please, please help end this nightmare for all of us. Please help us to bring Hannah home.

Thank you."

Sept. 26, 2014

Message from President Sullivan to Students

Several events are occurring this weekend on Grounds and in the Charlottesville area that offer occasions for you to socialize and gather with friends – but also to consider your safety. This evening, Final Friday will be held beginning at 5:30 p.m. on the Arts Grounds, and the Tom Tom Founders Festival will hold an event celebrating innovation and the arts, including recognition of several members of the U.Va. community. On Saturday, our football team will host Kent State at Scott Stadium at 3:30 p.m. Our volleyball and field hockey teams will also compete in Charlottesville this weekend. On Sunday, the Foxfield Fall Races will hold its 2014 Fall Family Day.

If you plan to attend these or other events this weekend, please remember to make responsible choices, to look out for one another, and to be aware of the resources that are available to you and others. 

The University Transit Service offers extended late night service on the Outer U-Loop and the Northline routes on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights from 12:30 a.m. until 2:30 a.m. 

If you are in the city, you can call Yellow Cab Charge-a-Ride at 434-295-4131 to travel by taxi. If you do not have the money to pay for the taxi, you need only to show a valid student ID to the Yellow Cab driver and sign the document the driver will provide to you. You will then be billed through your student account.

The University operates up to four Safe Ride vans that provide door-to-door transportation for current students with a valid student ID who might otherwise have to walk alone at night when buses are not in operation. Safe Ride operates Sunday through Wednesday, 12 midnight to 7 a.m., and Thursday through Saturday, 2:30 a.m. to 7 a.m.

The Safe Ride service area includes most student housing areas in the vicinity of the University Grounds (Safe Ride Map). A ride can be arranged by calling 434-242-1122.

All of us need to be active bystanders. Walk in groups, call 911 if you or a friend needs help or if you see something that requires police action, and ask for help if you need it. You can use our new “TipSoft” program to submit crime tips anonymously. Information about TipSoft and the free “TipSubmit” phone app is on the University Police site.

Student leaders will be distributing orange ribbons at the football game as a show of support for Hannah Graham and her family. 

As we remain hopeful for Hannah's safe return, please remember to consider your own safety and the safety of your fellow students.

Teresa A. Sullivan
President

Sept. 23, 2014

Message Regarding University Community Safety

To the University Community:

For more than a week, we have hoped and prayed for Hannah Graham and her family. Her safe return remains our highest priority, and I continue to urge you to share with police any information that might be related to the case by calling the dedicated tip line at 434-295-3851.

As the investigation has progressed, I have heard from students, parents, employees, community members, and others who have offered their thoughts and expertise. Many have also given generously of their time through volunteer efforts. I am very grateful for this outpouring of support.

We also have heard comments related to safety and security, and I write today to acknowledge those concerns and continue to address them.

We have taken several specific steps to enhance security and to increase resources available to the University community.  Along with local law enforcement, our University Police Department has increased patrols and the presence of officers. The University has expanded the number of vans operated through our SafeRide program. This fall, we introduced a new program called "TipSoft" that students can use to submit crime tips anonymously. Information about TipSoft and other resources can be found at the University Police site. We encourage all members of the University community to download this free app.

Last Friday, Student Council President Jalen Ross sent a message to students that focused on safety issues and resources. Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer Patricia Lampkin echoed many of the same points in a message to parents. Both of these safety-related communications, and all of the University's messages, can be found at this site.

These steps are a beginning, and we will continue to gather information and examine how we can make our University community as safe as possible.

All of us have important roles to play in this ongoing effort. Learning about the resources that are available to you can help you avoid putting yourself at risk. Look out for one another, and call 911 if you need help or suspect a problem. Let's help each other stay safe, as we continue our search for Hannah Graham.

Teresa A. Sullivan

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this message that was emailed to the University community incorrectly stated that the University has expanded the hours of operation for the SafeRide program. The accurate SafeRide hours are here. The University has increased the number of SafeRide vans in operation.

Sept. 21, 2014

Letter from President Sullivan to the University Community

Dear Friends in the Community:

As we continue to search for Hannah Graham and to hold out hope for her safe return, I write to thank the many members of our University, Charlottesville and surrounding communities who have stepped forward to provide both emotional support and physical assistance. More than 1,200 volunteers, including many University students and local citizens, participated in the search for Hannah on Saturday, and search crews fanned out across Charlottesville and parts of Albemarle County again Sunday.

As you heard from Hannah's parents, Susan and John Graham, during a press conference today, our shared goal as a community is to locate Hannah and to return her safely to her family, and we will draw upon all of the University's resources to do so.

We are grateful to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management and the coalition of public agencies that have come from across the Commonwealth and beyond to assist with the search. Times of crisis often produce a heightened sense of collaboration and teamwork, and this has been true over the past week as we have come together with our colleagues in a unified effort to find Hannah.

We are cooperating fully with law enforcement authorities as they continue their investigation. If you have any information that might be helpful, no matter how inconsequential it might seem to you, please call the dedicated tip line at 434-295-3851.

The pursuit of truth is the paramount purpose of a university. The members of the University of Virginia community and our friends and neighbors will not rest until we know the truth that lies at the heart of Hannah Graham's disappearance. Please keep holding Hannah and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

Teresa A. Sullivan
President

Statement Read by John and Susan Graham at Press Conference Today

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. My name is John Graham. I am Hannah’s father. This is Sue, Hannah’s mother, and my wife.

As this nightmare for Hannah for us, for Hannah’s big brother James, for her grandparents and extended family continues, Sue and I would like to make this statement.

We have been utterly overwhelmed by the generosity of spirit of everybody we have met this week, and many more besides whom we’ve been unable to meet. We understand that over 1,000 volunteers took part in yesterday’s search and a similar number of wonderful people are out today looking for Hannah. Sue and I were out searching: so were some of our work colleagues, friends and neighbors from our home and Hannah’s friends from high school and softball team.

But the effort is much wider. Members of the Charlottesville community turned out in force to help. Armies of Hannah’s university friends are helping. I read that a gentleman came from as far away as Baltimore, Maryland to help. Thank you sir. Alexis Murphy’s aunt, Trina, was helping. Thank you ma’am. Sue and I thank all of you from the bottom of our hearts.

The reason that Hannah has such marvelous support is that is every parent’s worst nightmare. I am certain that everybody in the room and watching who is a parent knows that what happened to Hannah could happen to their child. We need to find out what happened to Hannah and make sure that it doesn’t happen to anybody else.

You have all read about Hannah, I am sure. You will have read that Hannah is a second-year student at the university of Virginia, a skier, a musician and a softball player. She likes to help people and is interested in a career helping others. For example, last spring break, instead of hanging around on a beach or sleeping, Hannah spent a week in Tuscaloosa, Alabama contributing to the relief effort after the devastating tornado.

That is one Hannah. But Hannah is also our little girl. Our only daughter and James’ little sister. Hannah is also the oldest granddaughter of both my own parents and Sue’s parents, my parents’ only granddaughter. And while you think of our pain, consider them, an ocean away, not knowing what happened to their cherished granddaughter, Hannah, and unable to help.

Somebody knows what happened to Hannah. And others watching may know something helpful and may not even realize it. We know Hannah was downtown early on Saturday morning. Hannah was distinctively dressed. Did you see Hannah? Do you think you might have seen Hannah? Please, please, please call the tip line with anything that might just help us to bring Hannah home.

Sue and I have received countless messages of support. I would like to read one email we received this morning from one of Hannah’s high school teachers:

“I am sure you are continually being inundated with hundreds of people reaching out daily, but I just wanted to touch base again to express some of my hope and confidence.

“Throughout the week as I spoke with Hannah’s friends and teachers, and the countless other people whose lives have been bettered by Hannah's passion and positivity, one theme shone brightly through each conversation: hope. Not because that's what people feel like they should say at a time like this, but because of who Hannah is. Hannah is brilliant, resilient, determined, and loves life more than anyone I know. Everyone agrees, if anyone could get through this, it is Hannah.

“I've been trying to frame my thoughts with the idea that every moment that passes we are one moment closer to having Hannah back. Let's hope today is the day.”

When I returned home from bringing Hannah to Charlottesville for the start of term last month. I found she left this little guy behind. This is BeBe, Hannah’s white rabbit. He was given to Hannah when she was just one week old by one of my friends. BeBe helped out in Tuscaloosa. And was Hannah’s constant companion, friend and guardian angel until last month. Constant companion, that is, except for about six months when Hannah was 3 years old when he was lost at her nursery school. Bebe was found and came home to Hannah and to us.

All we want is to bring Hannah home safely. Please help us.

Thank you.
 

Sept. 19, 2014

Information for U.Va. Parents from the Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer

Dear Parents:

As the week comes to a close and the weekend begins, I know that you, like all of us, are anxious for any available updates about the disappearance of second-year student Hannah Graham. News media in Charlottesville and beyond are posting updates from the Charlottesville Police, and these reports are the best source of information at this time. We continue to update our main website with all related communications from the University.

I want to express the collective thanks of the University to all of you who have written with words of encouragement, expressions of hope, and prayers for Hannah, her family, and friends. Although you may not have received an individual response, please know how much we appreciate the support of each of you. You are part of our extended UVa family.

Last night, students held a vigil for Hannah in the Amphitheater. This event was a tremendous display of hope and strength on the part of our students, still so young in their experience but so genuine in their capacity to comfort and care for others. Hannah's parents, John and Sue Graham, attended the vigil and wrote today to express their thanks.

We continue to encourage students to maintain their daily routines but not "to go it alone" if they need to speak with someone, whether a counselor, a staff member in the Office of the Dean of Students, a Resident Staff member, a faculty or staff member, or another resource within the community. I know that many faculty members are talking about this crisis in their classes, as well as reminding students of basic safety habits.

Increased police patrols on the Grounds and in areas where students congregate will be noticeable this weekend, and in fact, increased patrols already were in place earlier in the semester. In anticipation of upcoming weekend activities, Student Council President Jalen Ross wrote the student body to emphasize once again the importance of personal safety and watching out for one another. Please read his message here. His message links to a Staying Safe tip sheetthat succinctly lists important phone numbers, resources, and reminders. Please encourage your students to be familiar with everything available to help them be safe and get support. If your student finds that any service is not being fulfilled as described, please let us know, and we will follow up.

Hannah's disappearance is likely to elicit one of the strongest instincts you have as a parent – to keep your daughter or son physically and emotionally safe. The single most helpful thing that you can do to create that safety is to talk with her or him. Given the complexities and fluidity of Hannah's situation, having those conversations with your student is easier said than done. I hope the following suggestions are helpful:

Don't try to change what your daughter or son is feeling. This sounds counterintuitive because, as parents, you may feel that it is your "job" to reduce your child's discomfort. Young people, however, feel most supported when they simply feel understood and validated. If you try to reason your student out of feeling scared, angry, sad (or whatever she or he is feeling), you will likely lose your opening for good communication. Instead, convey that you "get it," whatever "it" is. Try saying "Hey, I want you to know I really care about what you are going through … I'm going to be here for you." Then, just listen – it is one of the most precious gifts a parent can offer a daughter or son who is hurting.

Find your own support. It is with good intention that parents often unconsciously seek to alleviate their own anxiety by making their daughters and sons "feel better."  It will be very hard to enact the "Don't try to change what your student is feeling" idea if you are not getting your own support from someone who cares about you.

Provide good information about safety. Make clear, concise suggestions about how your daughter or son can keep herself or himself physically safe. Encourage your student to remain in the company of two other people when outside at night. Make sure she or he knows about Safe Ride (434-242-1122) and the University Transit System, both of which can provide safe transportation throughout the evening and early morning hours. More information is available in the Staying Safe tip sheet.

Suggest CAPS.  Ask that your student consider talking with a counselor at Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS), particularly if she or he is not feeling safe or struggling to get to class. The best way to access CAPS at a time like this is to have your student walk in anytime between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. CAPS is located in Student Health at the corner of Jefferson Park Avenue and Brandon Avenue. If your student would rather schedule some time with a CAPS counselor, she or he can do so by calling 434-243-5150. In addition, CAPS will be open throughout this weekend (Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.). Please call or have your student drop by. CAPS also will be available throughout the weekend to facilitate group meetings/discussions with affected student communities on Grounds.

Lastly, CAPS is here for you as well. If you would like to consult with one of the CAPS counselors about how to support your student, just call 434-243-5150 to speak with one of our counselors.

In her remarks at the vigil last night, President Teresa Sullivan talked about the challenge of maintaining hope while simultaneously feeling so much concern and anxiety. This is a big calling for all of us, especially our students, but we also know this crisis is the human condition laid bare. Much of what our students learn at UVa occurs outside the classroom. This is not an experience we would ever plan for them, but the kindness and great strength of the UVa community is pulling us all together.

We are here for you and your students, and we are grateful for all you are doing as part of the larger UVa community. We will continue to communicate with you in the days ahead.

Sincerely,
Patricia M. Lampkin
Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer

CAPS holding weekend hours to support students

Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) in Student Health will be open for extended hours throughout the weekend to assist students as they cope with Hannah Graham’s disappearance and as they learn of any new developments in the case. Extended hours of operation for the weekend are:

Friday, Sept. 19, 5 to 9 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 20, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 21, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

CAPS also will be available throughout the weekend to facilitate group meetings/discussions with affected student communities on Grounds.

Students can reach CAPS during the above hours this weekend (and during other regular business hours) at 243-5150. Outside of these hours, students can reach the CAPS 24-hour emergency on-call clinician by calling 972-7004. CAPS is located in the Elson Student Health Center at 400 Brandon Avenue (at the intersection of Brandon Avenue and Jefferson Park Avenue).

In a message to parents, Vice President Patricia M. Lampkin offered suggestions on how parents can talk with their students about their feelings and concerns during this difficult time. Parents also are invited are invited to call CAPS at 434-243-5150 if they would like to consult with one of the CAPS counselors.

Stay Safe This Weekend Message from U.Va. Student Council President Jalen Ross

Fellow Wahoos,

We are coming to the end of a long, emotionally difficult week. Last night's vigil was an important moment for joining together and drawing strength from one another as we search for answers in the disappearance of Hannah.

As we head into the weekend, I want to encourage you, more than ever, to think about your personal safety and how we can be supportive of one another. Hannah's disappearance shows just how vulnerable we can be. We need not live in fear, but we must acknowledge the reality of threats to our safety and well-being. Moving forward together and with the help of others, we can keep ourselves safe in a world that is often not.

For a list of resources, tips, and phone numbers, please see the Staying Safe tip sheet.

Some reminders:

• If you need help or see something suspicious, call 911. The police want you to call.
• Walk with others at night. Avoid dark, deserted areas, even if you're with a friend.
• Keep your doors and windows locked.
• Be familiar with the University's blue-light phone system (see Staying Safe tip sheet).
• When you go out, especially to parties, have a plan with your friends for getting there and getting back safely. Check in with your friends throughout the evening and make sure everyone leaves together.
• If you drink, know your limits and know how certain factors, such as body weight, gender, food consumption, medication usage, and rate of drinking affect intoxication.
• Do not leave a friend who has had too much to drink.

Please stay safe, and take care of one another.

Jalen Ross
President, UVa Student Council

Message from John and Sue Graham to the University Community

Dear Members of the UVa Community:



Last night, we attended the candlelight vigil organized by the students at the University of Virginia. We found the vigil to be extremely moving and would like to offer our sincere thanks to the students for arranging the event and to the University for enabling our attendance.



We were comforted by the evident high esteem in which our cherished daughter is held by her many friends at the University of Virginia and beyond.



We continue to be optimistic that Hannah will soon be returned safely to us. We repeat our previous appeal to contact the Charlottesville Police Department if you have any information that could help the Department’s enquires.



Lastly, it is now Friday, a week since Hannah’s disappearance. For those students planning to unwind this weekend, please be extra vigilant when you are out and walk with a buddy.



John and Sue Graham

• Sept. 18, 2014

Volunteers can help in search for Hannah Graham

Local and state emergency officials are seeking volunteers to assist with a mass search for Hannah Graham planned for early Saturday, Sept. 20. Graham is a student at the University of Virginia who has been missing since Saturday morning.

All volunteer searchers are subject to a background check and must register online no later than 5 p.m. Friday. Anyone who is unable to register online can register in person at John Paul Jones Arena (295 Massie Road in Charlottesville) prior to the 7 p.m. Friday volunteer briefing. Only those who have registered will be permitted to participate in Saturday’s search.

Volunteer searchers must:

• Be at least 18 years old
• Carry NO weapons
• Bring a copy of the registration form and driver’s license
• Wear proper footwear and clothing for weather and conditions
• Bring water to stay hydrated
• Indicate on registration if they have previous military and/or search-and-rescue experience
• Be physically in shape for walking/searching in up to four-hour periods

• Sept. 17, 2014

Statement from the Parents of Hannah Graham, Read at Charlottesville Police Press Briefing

Hannah is beyond precious to us, and we are devastated by her disappearance. It is totally out of character for us not to have heard from her, and we fear foul play. We are in constant contact with the Charlottesville Police Department and the University of Virginia.  
 
We have learned CPD has received many helpful leads from the public. We are very grateful for all information already provided and urge members of the public to continue to call the dedicated tip line, with anything at all, however small it seems.
 
We would also like to recognize the many messages of support we have received from Hannah's friends at UVA, her friends from high school, band and softball team, as well as our neighbors, friends and work colleagues, too many to count.
 
Although we are British, Hannah has lived in Virginia since she was five. This is her home and we have always felt welcome here.

We are so very grateful for everyone involved in the search for Hannah. Like you, we will not rest until we find her and she comes home.
 
Once again, if you have any information at all, however insignificant it may seem, please call 434-295-3851. Thank you.
 
 John and Susan Graham

Message from U.Va. Student Council President Jalen Ross

Fellow Wahoos:



It is with a heavy, but hopeful, heart that I write to you today.



As most of you know, early Saturday morning, Hannah Graham, one of our own, went missing. The authorities continue the relentless effort to bring her home safely.



We cannot--and must not--lose hope at this moment. In fact, it is now that Hannah's family and friends, as well as those conducting the search for her, need our support most.



I know that this is exactly the kind of need that our community will step up to meet, and I know that many of you have already made great efforts to support one another.



I invite all of you to take that support one step further by joining your peers in a Candlelight Vigil to Bring Hannah Home. We will meet in the Amphitheater on Thursday, September 18, at 9 p.m. to show support for Hannah, her loved ones, each other, and this community we call home.



I hope to see you there.



Jalen Ross

President, UVa Student Council

Message from President Sullivan to Alumni

By now you have most likely heard the news of the disappearance of Hannah Graham, a second-year UVa student who has been missing since early Saturday morning. All of us on the Grounds are anxiously hoping that she will return home safely very soon. The Charlottesville Police are leading the investigation of her disappearance, and we are offering all possible assistance to them and to the Graham family. 



We are making sure that students are aware of the resources that are available to help them with the anxiety and uncertainty they may feel during this difficult time. Yesterday, UVa Dean of Students Allen Groves sent a detailed message to our students; you can read the message from Dean Groves here. Students have launched a “Help Find Hannah Graham” page on Facebook here. 



The members of our University community form an extended family. This family includes our alumni and friends across the country and around the world. Just as families draw closer during times of crisis, let us draw together now as a UVa family, united by our concern, as we continue to hold Hannah Graham and her family in our thoughts and prayers. 



Very truly yours,

Teresa A. Sullivan

Message from President Sullivan to Parents of U.Va. Students

All of us on the Grounds are anxiously hoping that missing UVa student Hannah Graham will return home safely. The Charlottesville Police are leading the investigation of her disappearance, and we are offering all possible assistance to them and to the Graham family.



During this difficult time, we have resources available to help our students with the anxiety and uncertainty they may feel. Yesterday, UVa Dean of Students Allen Groves sent a message to our students with many helpful suggestions; you can read the message from Dean Groves here.



We are encouraging our students to maintain their daily schedules. Having structure in their day will help them in coping with uncertainty, and I hope that you will encourage your sons and daughters to stay on track. If your son or daughter seems to be in distress, do not hesitate to refer them to professional counseling if you believe it would be helpful for them. UVa's Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) department has trained clinicians who can help students manage anxiety or other emotions they may be feeling. A student may call CAPS at 434-243-5150 to schedule an appointment during the daytime, or at 434-972-7004 after hours if they need help in a crisis situation.



You are perhaps the most important resource for your student. Many students will seek advice and reassurance from their families. If you become concerned about your student's resilience or health, please let me, Vice President Pat Lampkin, or Dean Groves know of your concerns.



We need the strength and comfort we can offer one another at this difficult time, as we continue to hold Hannah Graham and her family in our thoughts and prayers.



Very truly yours,



Teresa A. Sullivan

President

• September 16, 2014

Statement From Family of Hannah Graham

Hannah Graham’s family issued the following statement today regarding the disappearance of their daughter, a second-year student at the University of Virginia. Hannah has been missing since early Saturday morning, and law enforcement officials are actively searching for her. The family asks that the public and news media respect its privacy at this time.

“Since learning of Hannah’s disappearance, we have been heartbroken and at the same time heartened by the outpouring of support and help we have received. We remain hopeful that Hannah will be found soon. We urge anyone with any information, however insignificant it may seem, to call a newly dedicated tip line at 434-295-3851 at the Charlottesville Police Department.

“Those of us who know and love Hannah know that she would not disappear without contacting family or friends. She is highly responsible and organized. She embraces life with energy and enthusiasm and has enriched the lives of many. Her empathy is evident in her daily interactions with us and her friends. She loves the University of Virginia, and all summer she was looking forward to the start of the new school year. U.Va. is her intellectual home, a place that stimulates her thinking on a broad variety of topics. Socially, she has found kinship and passion with her fellow members of the Ski Team.

“We express our sincere gratitude to law enforcement and everyone who is involved in the search for Hannah. We also thank the University for the full attention they are devoting to the situation. The kindness and support of so many – her friends at U.Va., particularly her friends on the Ski Team, her friends from high school, our neighbors, and the larger community – mean so much to us at this difficult time.

“Please join us in our fervent wish for Hannah’s safe return home. Once again, if you have any information at all, however insignificant it may seem, please call 434-295-3851.”

John, Susan, and James Graham

Message from President Sullivan to Faculty and Staff

All of us on the Grounds are anxiously hoping that Hannah Graham will return home safely. The Charlottesville Police are leading the investigation of her disappearance, and we are offering all possible assistance to them and to the Graham family. 

During this difficult time, we have resources available to help our students with the anxiety and uncertainty they may feel. The Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) department in Student Health has trained clinicians who can help students manage anxiety or other emotions they may be feeling. A student may call CAPS at 434-243-5150 to schedule an appointment during the daytime, or at 434-972-7004 after hours if they need help in a crisis situation. CAPS is located on the street level in the Elson Student Health Center, 400 Brandon Avenue, just off of Jefferson Park Avenue.

We are encouraging our students to maintain their daily schedules. Having structure in their day will help them in coping with uncertainty, and I hope that those of you who teach and support our students will help them stay on track. If students come to you in distress, I know that you will be understanding and listen to them carefully, but you should also not hesitate to refer them to professional counseling if you believe it would be helpful for them. Remember that our staff members in the Office of the Dean of Students are ready to assist you with any concerns you may have. During regular business hours, you can contact the Office of the Dean of Students directly at 434-924-7133; after hours, you can call 434-924-7166. 

Being older, many of us have already experienced frightening and disorienting events in our lives. Your wisdom from coping with such experiences may now help you in helping our students. But events such as Ms. Graham’s disappearance may also arouse within you, no matter how experienced you are, unpleasant emotions and memories that are hard to encounter. Please be aware that our Employee Assistance Program is available for you; you can call 434-243-2643, or find information here. You may also find helpful some of the suggestions in a message to students from Allen Groves here.

The Charlottesville Police Department has a new, dedicated tip line at 434-295-3851. We continue to urge anyone with any information, however insignificant it may seem, to call the police.

During this very difficult time, I urge you to pay special attention to students who may be in distress, and also pay attention to your own well-being. We need your calm and wisdom in addition to your dedicated service in these distressing days.

Very truly yours,

Teresa A. Sullivan
President

Message from Dean of Students Allen Groves on Community Resources and Safety

The University of Virginia community has been deeply affected by the recent report that a fellow student, Hannah Graham, has been missing for several days. Our thoughts remain with her family at this difficult time. Please know that the University is supporting them. Yesterday morning, you received an email from University Police Chief Mike Gibson, and Vice President Patricia Lampkin wrote to your parents to also inform them of this concerning case.

I have heard from a number of students in the past two days, offering their hope that Hannah will return safely (I share this hope) and also expressing their own concern and anxiety over Hannah’s disappearance. The UVa community is a tight-knit family, and an event like this touches a great many of us quite deeply. At such a difficult time, I want you to know that there are resources available to assist you if needed.

The Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) department in Student Health has trained clinicians who can help you manage stress, anxiety, or other emotions you may be feeling. You will find them very welcoming and helpful. You may call CAPS at 434-243-5150 to schedule an appointment during the daytime, or at 434-972-7004 after hours if you need help in a crisis situation. CAPS is located on the street level in the Elson Student Health Center, 400 Brandon Avenue, just off JPA.

In addition, our professional staff in the Office of the Dean of Students is available to assist you. Our main office is located on the second floor in Peabody Hall, upstairs from the Office of Admission. You can stop in or call 434-924-7133 to schedule an appointment. In addition, if you live in a University residence hall, you should feel free to approach your RA and seek his or her support and a referral to other services. The main office of the Housing and Residence Life unit of the Office of the Dean of Students is located on the lower level of the Kent/Dabney residential community in the McCormick Road first-year living area. Professional staff located there are available to support and assist you as well.

I also want to make certain that you are aware of safe transportation options that exist in the area surrounding the University, particularly late at night on weekends.

Safe Ride operates up to three vans that provide door-to-door transportation for current students with a valid student ID who would otherwise have to walk alone at night. Hours of operation are Sunday through Wednesday from 12 midnight until 7 a.m., and Thursday through Saturday from 2:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. The service area includes most student housing areas in the vicinity surrounding the University Grounds (Safe Ride Map). A ride can be arranged by calling 434-242-1122. One Safe Ride van picks up passengers near the Alderman/Clemons Library every half hour during operating hours, when the library is in operation, Sunday through Thursday mornings.

University Transit Service (UTS) offers extended late night service on the Outer U-Loop and the Northline routes on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights from 12:30 a.m. until 2:30 a.m.

In addition, if you are unable to wait for a Safe Ride van pickup, are not near a UTS bus route late at night, or otherwise feel unsafe, please remember that you may call Yellow Cab Charge-a-Ride at 434-295-4131 to travel by taxi. If you do not have the money to pay for the taxi at that point in time, you need only show a valid student ID to the Yellow Cab driver and sign the document they will provide to you. You will then be billed through your student account.

Lastly, I want to stress the importance of being an active bystander at all times. Walk in groups, step in if you see a peer in a potentially unsafe situation, call 911 if you observe a situation that appears to require immediate police action, and always ask for help or assistance if you need it yourself. Charlottesville Police and University Police officers maintain an active presence in the area surrounding the University Grounds, and they will be promptly dispatched when 911 is dialed.

The police welcome any and all information that may be helpful in finding Hannah. If you have any information, however insignificant it may seem, please call a newly dedicated tip line at 434-295-3851 at the Charlottesville Police Department.

Please be safe, look out for each other, and help keep UVa the caring community we know it to be. #hoosgotyourback

Sincerely,

Allen Groves

University Dean of Students

• September 15, 2014

President's Message Regarding Missing University Student

The University of Virginia has issued the following statement of President Teresa A. Sullivan, regarding the report of a missing U.Va. student:

The members of the University of Virginia community are united in our deep concern for Hannah Elizabeth Graham, who is missing and has not been in touch with her family or friends since early Saturday morning. The Charlottesville Police Department is investigating this case, and has been conducting an extensive search since learning of Ms. Graham’s disappearance. Our University Police Department was notified of the report Sunday evening, and this morning has contacted all students, faculty and staff to make them aware of the situation. Our Office of Student Affairs has provided this information to parents as well.

Anyone with information regarding Ms. Graham is asked to contact the Charlottesville Police Department at 434-970-3280 or Crimestoppers at 434-977-4000. A photograph of Ms. Graham may be found at this link: http://www.virginia.edu/graham/. We are hopeful that someone will come forward soon with information that will lead the authorities to Ms. Graham.

Teresa A. Sullivan
President

Message to Parents from the Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer

I am writing to alert you that the below message went out this morning to more than 40,000 members of the UVa community in Charlottesville – all students, faculty, and staff. We are deeply concerned about the whereabouts of Ms. Graham, and local law enforcement have been involved in an extensive search since learning of her disappearance.
To repeat from the below message: Anyone with information regarding Hannah is asked to contact the Charlottesville Police Department at 434-970-3280 or Crimestoppers at 434-977-4000.

Please keep Ms. Graham's family and friends in mind during this difficult situation. We will share more details as they become available.



Sincerely,


Patricia M. Lampkin
Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer

Message to the University Community from the Chief of University Police

The Charlottesville Police Department is investigating a missing person incident involving a University of Virginia student, Hannah Elizabeth Graham. Hannah is a white female and 18 years old. She is approximately 5'11" tall with a skinny build. She has blue eyes, light brown hair and has freckles. She was last seen wearing a black crop top with mesh cut outs. The last contact she had with friends was via text message at 1:20 a.m. on September 13, 2014.

A photo of Hannah is available here: www.virginia.edu/graham.

Anyone with information regarding Hannah is asked to contact the Charlottesville Police Department at 434-970-3280 or Crimestoppers at 434-977-4000.



Michael Gibson

Chief, University Police

University of Virginia Executive Vice President and Provost John D. Simon has been named the next president of Lehigh University, officials announced Friday. Simon, who has served as the chief academic officer at U.Va. since 2011, will assume the new post on July 1.

U.Va. President Teresa A. Sullivan praised Simon for his steady leadership and wise counsel during his tenure at the University.

“John Simon is a talented scientist and administrator who has earned respect and admiration across Grounds, in the larger University community and beyond,” Sullivan said. “John has an abiding commitment to academic excellence. Working in close collaboration with the faculty, staff, students and academic leadership, his support of our mission of teaching, research, patient care and service has positioned the University for even greater success. U.Va. is extremely grateful for his leadership and contributions, and we wish him the very best as he assumes the presidency at Lehigh University. He and Diane will be missed.”

Sullivan said she looks forward to working closely with Simon prior to his departure on the implementation of the University’s five-year strategic plan, the Cornerstone Plan.

Simon expressed his deep affection for the University and appreciation for the opportunity to serve as its provost.

“The University of Virginia holds a unique and special place in the history of higher education in the nation and the world,” Simon said. “I will be forever grateful to the talented faculty, students and staff with whom I have had the privilege to work at this storied institution. There is incredible positive momentum at the institution due in large part to the vision outlined in the Cornerstone Plan and the leadership of President Sullivan, her senior leadership team and the deans at the eleven schools. I look forward to continuing this important work over the next nine months. The future holds great promise for U.Va., and U.Va. will always hold a special place in my heart.”

Simon was selected by Lehigh following an extensive nationwide search. Lehigh officials cited Simon’s “record of success as a visionary leader in higher education” and his achievements “at the highest levels as a scholar, as an administrator, and as a dynamic leader.”

Rector George Keith Martin expressed similar praise for Simon.

“It comes as no surprise that Lehigh would want someone of John’s character and talent at the helm of the institution,” Martin said. “Over the past three years, the Board of Visitors has relied on John’s knowledge and expertise as we have worked with the administration to advance excellence at this great institution. His stewardship of the academic enterprise has been nothing short of tremendous, and we are truly indebted to him for his extraordinary service.”

Sullivan said a search will be organized soon to help identify candidates to serve as the University’s next provost.

The Lehigh University announcement regarding Simon’s appointment as president is available online.

As U.Va.’s provost, Simon is responsible for the academic administration of each of the 11 schools, as well as its library system, art museums, public service activities and foreign study programs. In all, Simon oversees the academic activities of 2,200 instructional and research faculty, 14,500 undergraduate students and 6,500 graduate students, and manages a budget of $1.4 billion.

Prior to joining U.Va., Simon was the vice provost for academic affairs at Duke University, where he was responsible for overseeing Duke's strategic planning and for nurturing campus-wide academic initiatives to connect the humanities, social sciences and sciences. Prior to serving as vice provost, he chaired Duke's chemistry department for five years. He joined the Duke faculty in 1998 and a year later was named chair of the chemistry department. Previously, Simon spent 12 years working his way through the academic ranks at the University of California, San Diego.

Simon has written more than 250 publications and three books. Highlights of his awards include the Presidential Young Investigator, 1985-1990; the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, 1988-1990; and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar, 1990-1995. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society.

He earned his bachelor's degree from Williams College in 1979 and his master's and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1981 and 1983, respectively.

Simon’s wife, Diane Szaflarski, holds a faculty position in the U.Va. School of Nursing. She will continue on the faculty for the next year. They have two teen-age sons.