About a dozen faculty participate in the Mead Endowment Program each year, hand-picked by their deans for their potential to become friends and mentor to students. Each proposes a creative “Dream Idea” project that allows them to bond with a small group of students in meaningful and memorable ways. The Mead Endowment funds these projects. Click on the links below to view the complete proposals.
The faculty honorees begin their experience at celebratory dinner in their honor, where they hear the previous year’s honorees report on their projects.
The program began with faculty from the College. Thanks to awards created in honor of other legendary faculty such as John Colley of Darden, Henry Kinnier of Engineering, and Jack Lindgren of McIntire, faculty from those schools now participate as well.
Dream Idea Proposals
Click on the professor's name to view their original proposal. (Only the underlined names received funding, due to lack of resources in the early years.)
Click here for tips on how to craft a successful proposal.
Click here to get reimbursed for expenses related to your project.
2023
Prince Afriyie / data science
Data can be used in many ways. It can be used to tell the truth and create equity in more homogenous spaces. Conversely, it can be used to make specious arguments about truths and thereby creating and/or enforcing inequity. The discipline of Data Science plays a crucial role in social justice issues as telling stories correctly through data can uplift the voices of those who are often silenced. Professor Afriyie will enlist a small group of diverse students from his courses to give them exposure to research in Statistics and Data Science. More specifically, students will read and critique various literature where statistical visualizations have been used, positively or negatively, in analyzing data relating to social justice and human rights. Regular discussion meetings with students will be held informally over lunch/dinners, during the course of which Professor Afriyie hopes to create a lasting mentor relationship with his students.
Kevin Duong / Politics
In principle, Professor Duong tries to stress “learning through making” for undergraduate students. That premise is obvious enough, from ancient philosophy to twentieth-century pragmatism, but implementing that premise is not always easy on an arts quad. Kevin’s Dream Idea is to have students assemble a small Surrealist exhibition at the end of Spring ‘24: photographs, collages, found objects, sculptures, poetry, or video. The Surrealists were committed to an ethics of “found objects”: the capacity of ordinary things to carry aesthetic force. Kevin plans to have students read some of the major Surrealist works together with their modernist sources. Students will dedicate a substantial amount of class time to planning, creating, and staging their own small Surrealist exhibit, populated with the various objects they create, find, and arrange. Students will plan the exhibition together, the better to understand Surrealism history and to enter that history as participants of a living, if now overshadowed, tradition of radical art and politics.
Thomas Frampton / Law
Before becoming a professor, Professor Frampton was a public defender and civil rights attorney in Louisiana, the incarceration capital of the world. He now studies and writes about race, legal history, and mass incarceration. These experiences prompt his Dream Idea. Thomas aspires to teach law students, over January-term, about landmark decisions in Louisiana cases – for instance, those that hobbled Reconstruction (Slaughter-House Cases), enshrined Jim Crow (Plessy v. Ferguson) and incorporated the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial (Duncan v. Louisiana), all of which took place in New Orleans. Students will receive a crash course not only in constitutional history, but in the local geography. Thomas will take his students to New Orleans where they can read and discuss cases in the very venue they took place, as well as meet with people who live and work in the Louisiana criminal justice system.
Nikki Hastings / Commerce
Professor Hasting’s project will provide a unique opportunity for students interested in careers in the biotechnology industry to participate in an immersive experience to gain real-world experience into medical innovation. Students will participate in two experiences. First, they will tour JLabs (Johnson & Johnson) innovation labs in Washington, DC. This tour will expose students to the latest advances in biotech, such as gene editing, synthetic biology, and regenerative medicine, and provide a firsthand look at how these technologies are being applied in real-world settings to improve patient outcomes. Second, students will shadow UVA physicians to observe surgical interventions of patients (i.e., catheter placement in the Cardio Labs) and then debrief over a dinner with the doctors following the experience to learn about technologies used during the case. This hands-on approach will allow students to see firsthand the application of biotech principles in a real-world setting and understand the complexities of delivering healthcare.
Inger Kuin / Classics
In Professor Kuin’s course "Engaging Ethics: Are You a Stoic?" students study the philosophical school called Stoicism, which dates back to ancient Greece but still has many followers today. In this class students read the writings of some ‘old’ Stoics (Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca), some ‘new’ ones (Ryan Holiday, Nancy Sherman), and critics of both. Students examine how each would answer the core question that Stoicism poses: how to live a good life? One of the objectives is to explore ethical questions by engaging with ideas in a variety of media, including texts, podcasts, and film. To that end, Inger will organize a movie screening for her students at the Violet Crown Theater. Students will discuss the movie in the next class, for which students will prepare by writing an individual reflection. To increase buy-in, the movie will be chosen via a student vote from four options: Seneca: On the Creation of Earthquakes, Waking Life, Thank You for Smoking, and The Seventh Seal.
Marcy Linton / Drama
Fashion has been utilized as a tool for common good, moving both culture and the individual toward empowerment, influence, self-identification, and community bonds, but also as a tool of power and privilege to segregate, distinguish, demoralize, and repress human subjects. As a companion piece to her Engaging Differences course ("Who Dressed You?"), Professor Linton proposes to organize guest visitors for her students to celebrate differences in appearances and clothing across cultures. These experiences include inviting three to four guest speakers from different backgrounds and cultures to the classroom to immerse students in cultural dress, the meaning behind it, and its historical context, and to bring in Native American dancers to perform ceremonial dancing in traditional regalia. In addition to bringing culture to the classroom, Marcy will host small group field trips to other universities or industry, where students will be able to bond among themselves and with their professor over shared ‘ride time’ and debriefs over meals.
Angel Parham / Sociology
Professor Parham will host small gatherings of twelve students at a time where they will gather over a meal to engage in a colloquy. A colloquy is a small group that comes together to discuss a quote or short passage that lends itself to in-depth reflection and discussion. Angel did a “Tea and Colloquy” for a small group of her students last spring and found that it worked beautifully. No advance reading is required, and a well-chosen quote leads to lots of wonderful insight and discussion. To set the mood, she intends to do this in a beautiful place over a meal, ideally Watson Manor near Rugby Road, where Angel has office space. Over two days, she will invite six groups of twelve students to sign up for brunch, afternoon tea or dinner slots on a weekend and engage in informal time for building both social and intellectual community over good food.
Jim Seitz / English
First-year students in Professor Seitz’s Engaging Differences course compose a “depiction of difference” – basically a short essay about what makes them different or unique. Not surprisingly, various students have submitted some amazing, moving, beautiful essays about the conflicts and challenges they’ve faced as a result of being different. Professor Seitz intends to expand the process by publishing a small booklet at the end of each semester, containing a collection of student essays, so that students across all sections could have access to inspire them when writing their own, or just for personal reading. And the students whose work is published would feel rewarded by inclusion in a publication from which others could draw inspiration. Further, UVA’s Admissions Office could share these works with prospective students, parents and donors, conveying the rich diversity of our student body.
Mircea Stan / Electrical and Computer Engineering
Integrated circuits, commonly referred to as "chips", are essential to modern electronics, as they serve as the foundation for electronic devices. ICs consist of numerous interconnected electronic components, such as resistors, transistors, and diodes, that are fabricated on a single piece of silicon. Without ICs, many of the electronic devices we use every day would not exist. Despite the significance of ICs, student interest in chip design and fabrication has been dwindling. Professor Stan proposes to rekindle student interest in chip design and fabrication among undergraduates at UVA by providing them with real-life experiences and opportunities. His Idea includes visits to cleanrooms at Virginia universities where chips are being fabricated, tours of companies involved in chip design and fabrication in Virginia, and dinners over which students will debrief. To further build a pipeline of student interest in ICs, a few select high school students will be invited to participate.
Lean Sweeny / History
As the professor of “Talking Trash: How Labeling and Discarding Shapes Our Spaces and Ourselves,” Professor Sweeney intends for students to rethink what they consider to be discard, trash, useless, dirty, polluted, etc. as well as what they see as clean, pure, ideal, etc. She wants them to better recognize the rigid divides they have invented between different things, places, people, cultures, practices, etc. through analyzing their relationship to trash and the role trash and its associations plays in their lives and in society as a whole. Students will repurpose trash as “art” during a craft night to help them rethink the divide between trash and art. They will also visit a local composting facility to understand the infrastructure around the ideal of saving our planet by changing habits of trashing and cleaning up, and make them more aware of the ongoing life of discarded materials for which they no longer feel responsible.
Cynthia Tong / Psychology
The field of data science and data analytics has gained prominence because it presents us new ways to process and interpret data that dump us every day. Professor Tong will assemble a group of students from her Engagement classes to immerse them in the world of data science and quantitative methods. Once a month, they will visit a research/academic organization or company in Charlottesville. Students will learn what a data center consists of and get a strong sense of what data science and AI are and what kind of problems those companies try to solve. They will write blogs together to summarize opportunities related to data analytics in our local area and post those on Professor Tong’s lab’s publicly accessible website as resources for the community. In addition, Cynthia will provide a small group of students with more hands-on research activities. This project will prepare students for quantitative research and careers in data science.
2022
Nicola Bezzo / ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE
New advances in sensing and computation increasingly make robotic flight systems a reality: aerial photography, infrastructure inspection, surveillance and even search and rescue operations. Dr. Bezzo will immerse students in the world of autonomous aerial technologies with activities including: 1) a one day, mini-course on principles of control and motion planning of quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles, 2) hands-on experiments in a state of the art laboratory, 3) field experiments at the Milton Airfield with autonomous UAVs where students will have the opportunity to fly autonomously, and 4) a visit to CoStar, a leader in infrastructure aerial photography, to interact with engineers and learn about aerial applications including exposure to societal problems related to robotics society perception, safety, security and privacy issues.
Leslie Kendrick / LAW
Professor Kendrick will bring together a small group of law students to pilot various tools meant to help facilitate dialogue and understanding among people with different perspectives. Some of the team’s work will involve engaging in exercises laid out in books and similar materials. At least one tool will involve an in-person facilitation or workshop with a trained professional. Students and teacher will both try the chosen practices and review them as a group. The objective is for Leslie to build relationships with the select students while also learning about which materials foster values of civic dialogue effectively among students.
Nicole Long / Psychology
Professor Long aims to demystify the trajectory and career of an academic researcher by assembling a group of 5-10 undergraduates for informal dinners to discuss the ‘hidden curriculum’ of academia. Topics will include effective mentor/ mentee relationships, applying for jobs at each training stage and the day-to-day life of an academic researcher. She will also invite 2-4 current graduate students to participate to offer insights about their learning thus far in their training.
Sara Maloni / mathematics
Dr. Maloni will challenge the idea of Mathematics as an isolated subject built on dry formulas and show students that Mathematics can be beauty, symmetries, hidden patterns, curiosity, and problem solving. She plans to do that using Hyperbolic Geometry, making Mathematics more accessible and concrete for a diverse group of students. Participants will meet in the STEM Maker Room to create mathematical objects, using crochet, 3D printers, CNC routers and laser cutters. Students will document their processes in a library of experiences to inspire future students’ enthusiasm and curiosity about Mathematics.
Dan Murphy / Darden
“Exploring Solutions to the Affordable Housing Shortage in Charlottesville.” While new development has the potential to ease housing costs, concerns exist, based on history of urban renewal projects in the city, that it may accelerate the crowding-out of affordable housing. Murphy will invite approximately six students who have taken his elective to engage with community activists, developers and city officials to discuss proposed solutions and possible challenges to the effective implementation of the city’s comprehensive plan. He anticipates asking different pairs of students to meet with different members of the community and then report back to the group over a series of dinners.
Jelena Samonina / Chemistry
Dr. Samonina will will assemble students from biology, chemistry, computer science, neuroscience and art into small teams. Each will pick an interesting biologically active molecule or macromolecular complex, such as cholesterol, lipoprotein, morphine, insulin, protein transporter, etc. They will then develop creative ways to express and illustrate the biological and chemical properties of their target molecule. For example, an art student can create an artistic expression that describes the biomolecule through sculpture, painting, song, dance, poem or any other form of art; a computer science student could program and graphically animate the molecular behavior; or an engineering student could 3-D print variations of the molecule. Students will present video demos of their projects and publish them on the Web to inspire future students.
Marisa Williamson / Art
Interdisciplinary Arts: Embodying the Archive. This project will bring together students across disciplines to challenge their definitions of art, commonly believed to be limited to pencils, paper, paint, and canvas. Throughout the project, students in the course will create an interdisciplinary archive of conversations that transpire around a dinner table, culminating in the opportunity to exhibit this work in the Ruffin Gallery (or elsewhere) following completion of the semester. The manner of “conversation as pedagogy” (inspired by Stuart Hall and Bell Hooks’ 2018 contemplative dialogue) will introduce students to contemporary and classical drivers of social change, artists, writers, and philosophers, as well as invite students to critically engage with their ideas by integrating them with student’s lived experiences.
2020 - 2021
Panagiotis ApostolelLis / Engineering
Panagiotis engaged a dozen students in a series of meetings and a two-day retreat at Morven Farm, where students worked on discovering their values and aligning them with their goals as a basis for connecting people on a global scale based on common values.
Dan Ortiz / Law
Dan invited law students to explore how cultural depictions of law – in movies, novels and essays – influence people’s interpretation of laws and to what extent it shapes their behaviors.
Andrej Petrovic / Classics
Andrej did not surrender to the pandemic’s restrictions; he brought together students in the simplest ritual – a picnic on the Lawn – to enjoy the greatest comfort and joy – human connectedness.
Lauren Simkins / Environmental Sciences
Lauren invited Environmental Sciences students to analyze sediments from Antarctica to understand how major Earth changes are recorded in sediments and can provide context for current day environmental changes.
Kim Whitler / Darden
Kim connected undergraduate aspiring marketing students with Darden students by way of panel discussions and social engagement to explore potential marketing career paths via an MBA.
2019
Gia-Wei Chern / Physics
Dramatic advances in computer technology enable students to accelerate and deepen exploration of complex physics concepts. To broaden all students’ knowledge of advanced computational programs, Gia-Wei Chern will invite ten select students to create interactive learning modules to demonstrate the power of numerical techniques and computer algorithms. The students will present their results, which will become part of the physics curriculum, and the students will have an opportunity to dine with visiting numerical experts from Los Alamos and Oak Ridge Laboratories.
Federico Cuatlacuatl / Art
Professor Cuatlacuatl will invite students as part of his research to fly kites in Washington DC during day and night over a couple of days, digitally tracking the motion of the kites as well as making digital night light drawings of the kites in motion. Students will think critically about culture and tradition as political and artistic weapons. Essentially, the kite flying sessions will be peaceful forms of protest on current immigration issues, culminating in an exhibition at 2nd Street Gallery in downtown Charlottesville in April 2020.
Rich Evans / Darden
This Fall, Professor Evans will invite ten Darden faculty to meet over dinner with 60 remote Darden Executive MBA students in groups of six students and one faculty during twice yearly EMBA residencies in Charlottesville. These exchanges provide an opportunity for faculty to share in depth their research and teaching expertise, broadening students’ perspectives about areas of concentration and potential career opportunities. Each student will attend the dinner of their choice based on fit between the student’s interests and the professor’s expertise.
Cody Fleming / Engineering
Simply, Professor Fleming and several students will ride around in autonomous vehicles. They will venture first to Crozet to tour and test ride autonomous cars built by Perrone Robotics, a company founded by a UVA SEAS alum. A trip trip will be to Torq Robotics in Blacksburg, a company founded from the same national competition that launched Perrone Robotics.
Pete Furia / Politics
A select few Politics and Global Studies undergrads will replicate a research project Professor Furia led as a graduate student in 1999, exploring topics of patriotism and globalism, to understand variations across political, economic, military and cultural spectrums. Students will conduct focus groups at VFW clubs and a national survey of registered voters, present findings at a conference, and ideally publish their research. The experience will afford students highly sought-after research experience and provide an opportunity for faculty to write meaningful letters of recommendations.
Hiromi Kaneda / Italian
Professor Kaneda’s Dream Idea for the Intermediate Italian class is to take the entire class for a long weekend in Washington, DC and spend a day at the National Gallery of Art. Each of the students will be the tour guide for a specific artwork they select. The experience presenting a work of art to their classmates in Italian, outside the usual classroom setting, will benefit students by getting closer to the Italian language, culture and art in a real environment outside the University.
Mona Kasra / Drama
Mona will bring together a small group of undergraduate students interested in storytelling, new media, performance, music, and visual art to create individual and collective virtual reality/360 degree films highlighting their diverse stories, activities, and experiences at UVA. These place-focused immersive films will then be embedded and shared on an interactive map of the University.
XiAorong Liu / Biology
Two observations:
1) Few students majoring in Biology, Psychology and Neuroscience consider career paths other than med school or graduate school.
2) Science teachers in elementary and middle school are eager to provide research lab experiences opportunities for their students.
So Professor Xiorang Liu host a science-education seminar for his students, inviting STEM teachers from a local elementary and middle schools to share their experiences as educators. Then his undergraduate science students will collaborate with the teachers to design and host a “Neuroscience Research Day” for middle school students. The combined activities aim to inspire science majors to consider careers in secondary science education and create new interaction between science and science education.
Lisa Morkowchuck / Chemistry
Students in introductory science courses will collaborate to find and engage in applications of the scientific mindset in everyday life, dispelling the notion that science consists of highly controlled research with multimillion-dollar equipment, summarized in technical jargon incomprehensible to the novice scientist. Multiple student meetings will culminate with a challenge to develop a project wherein students tackle a personal issue scientifically, develop a hypothesis, experiment, and collect data. Participants will communicate their findings in poster sessions open to the UVA community.
Amanda Phillips / Art
Students ill embark on an odyssey through the art and architecture of one of the world’s most historic, fascinating and multicultural cities, Istanbul. They will adopt the role of an historical figure, exploring how their experience was influenced by art and architecture. To aid envisioning daily life of the times, students will re-create dishes based on 16th century recipes to make a meal fit for a Sultan. Second semester will entail a trip to the Freer-=Sackler museum in DC, featuring Ottoman silks.
Suad Mohamed / Middle Eastern & South Asian Language and Cultures
Professor Mohamed aspires to make students more familiar with and appreciative of the linguistic richness and cultural diversity of the Middle East and North Africa (“MENA”) region, contrary to the popular notion that it is a monolithic culture. Over the course of several dinners in Charlottesville and Richmond restaurants and local MENA residents’ homes, native speakers from one of the MENA regions will speak their dialect, sharing colloquial vocabulary and expressions while dining on local dishes. The group also hopes to visit a MENA cultural exhibition or Arab film festival in Washington, DC.
Kelly Sulick / Music
UVA flutists come from varied backgrounds. This Dream Idea introduces flute players to a more holistic approach to their instruments by visiting flute workshops in and around Boston, home of the American flute school, and tour the world’s best flute makers’ workshops. Skilled craftsmen will demonstrate designing, building and finishing instruments. Students will also attend a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance and interview musicians. The culmination of their exploration will have students presenting their research and experience the UVA Flute Forum hosted at UVA.
2018
Jennifer Bair /sociology
Jennifer Bair has designed an intriguing exercise for students to understand how commodities we consume daily came to be and what this tells us about our relationships with each other and with the environment. Three themes will be analyzed in relation to the commodities studied: labor and livelihoods; trade and transport; and consumption and waste. As an outcome, students will produce a website, podcast or other media to raise awareness among the university community, including with UVA’s Procurement Services office.
PETER BELMI / DARDEN
Peter Belmi’s course, Paths to Power, helps Darden students understand how to exercise power effectively. Select students will travel to DC to see the musical Hamilton, which follows Alexander Hamilton’s remarkable life and the dilemmas and choices he faced on his rise to power. Hopefully students will be inspired to consider how their career ambitions fit with their values and aspirations and to think creatively about how they can influence inequality and social mobility that result in power begetting power.
DOUGLAS FORDHAM / DRAMA
Douglas Fordham’s class, Art of Revolutionary Europe, examines how European artists responded to the French Revolution and its aftermath. The art of the Napoleonic period is central to the narrative, exploring how Napoleon influenced the end of the French Revolution. Students will launch the fall semester with a visit to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, to view the very relevant and timely exhibition, “Napoleon: Power and Splendor”. Students will get to know each other while viewing high-quality works from the period that will be studied throughout the course.
JOHN HAMILTON / MEDIA STUDIES
“Music at the Movies” will give students an experience impossible to appreciate while watching films solo on their personal mobile devices. Six curated films about music will be shown throughout the year in the Newcomb Hall Movie Theatre, replete with movie theater concessions, following which, Jack Hamilton will host a “talkback” following each film. The screenings will bring together music and film fans across Grounds in a marriage of education and entertainment to share what has been a highlight of Jack’s very popular “Sound and Cinema” course.
MICHAEL HILINSKI / CHEMISTRY
“The Billion Dollar Molecule: One Company’s Quest for the Perfect Drug”, will prompt discussion among STEM majors with drug industry scientists about the pharmaceutical industry’s impact on health. Currently, opportunities abound for undergrads to learn about becoming a physician or academic researcher; however, opportunities to learn about industrial drug discovery are limited. Having been a scientist at many pharmaceutical companies, Michael Hilinski is ideally suited to explore with students how they might impact human health by a less well-known route.
MARY KUHN / ENGLISH
Climate fiction is a genre inviting readers to contemplate a rapidly changing climate – from realist portrayals of weird weather phenomena to post-apocalyptic scenarios. Henry David Thoreau logged meticulous weather records, providing a time capsule of the climate nearly 200 years ago. Mary Kuhn proposes to build a current day climate capsule with students by walking the Grounds and in Shenandoah, capturing observations of people, the natural environment and air quality. Notebooks will be preserved in a vault opened in 2044, providing future researchers a window into how students in 2019 thought about the environment.
SARAH MILOV / HISTORY
The largely unknown history of eugenics is intimately tied to the history of the State of Virginia and UVA. State history books seldom mention the extent to which Virginia was an international leader in categorizing human difference and sterilizing those deemed “unfit”. Sarah Milov and participating students will haunt places where eugenics was practiced and document that haunting in a website combining student photography and narration that will serve as a public monument to the more than 7500 Virginians sterilized between 1924 and 1976.
NICOLE MONTGOMERY / MCINTIRE SCHOOL OF COMMERCE
Teams of two to four students will work with Nicole Montgomery and a leading digital consulting firm to research and develop an original idea that will be of interest to the business community and advance students’ collective understanding of the rapidly evolving digital marketing ecosystem. Students will collect data for their project via surveys, purchasing data sets and/or testing paid content on digital channels. They will meet weekly to present project updates and seek/provide feedback, culminating in a student-led presentation to the marketing company and other student groups.
DIANA MORRIS / ENGINEERING
UVA Alumna Margot Shetterly created a media sensation when her book, “Hidden Figures”, which recounts the little-known story of the African American women who were essential contributors to the first manned mission to the moon, hit bookshelves and the big screen to much acclaim. Diana Morris has coordinated with Virginia resident Ms. Shetterly to meet with engineering students for a movie viewing and discussion about her insights, her role in bringing to light an amazing story, and reactions the world over.
LEAH REID / MUSIC
Students in the Music Department and Dance Program in the Drama Department will collaborate to compose new works. Dancers, composers, choreographers and musicians will create works exploring sound and movement. Professional musicians, ideally part of UVA’s performance faculty, will realize the composers’ and choreographers’ musical visions, bringing to life their works, enhancing students’ portfolios and enriching their academic experience, as well as strengthen the partnership between Drama and Music Departments.
KEVIN WELCH / CHEMISTRY
Kevin Welch has a personal goal to help chemistry students understand how chemical principles impact their daily lives. He will work with 8-10 students to better understand where energy used in Virginia comes from and how the technology relates directly to concepts taught in introductory chemistry. They will visit Virginia sources of electric power, meet with scientists and engineers that operate the facilities, and consider the waste generated by each technology, including implications for our community and the world.
KENT YAGI / PHYSICS
Three undergraduate Physics majors will be selected by way of a Gravity Research Competition to study frontier research in gravitational physics, which is particularly timely on the heels of related research that earned the Nobel Prize in Physics last year. In close collaboration with Kent Yagi, the select students will brainstorm research topics over dinners, conduct research, publish findings in a journal, and present outcomes to their classmates. Peer votes will determine which student will have the opportunity to attend an American Physics Society meeting.
2017
CHRISTOPHER ALI / MEDIA STUDIES
Media policy is all too often the forgotten cousin of public policy. But without the media no other policy decision can be communicated. “Pizza and Policy” will introduce Washington policymakers, activists, stakeholders and media policy thinkers to UVA students over a monthly repast to explore real-world media policy issues. What could be more topical than this exploration of net neutrality, privacy, surveillance, copyright and fake news in a creative extension of classroom learning?
BRENDAN BOLER / MCINTIRE
Brendan has a military background, teaches in McIntire and loves history. With that, he will create a memorable experience for three fourth year students by inviting them to examine leadership skills – judgment and decision making, persuasion and influence – that transcend time and place on a day trip to the battlefield at Gettysburg. Students will read Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels in advance, and following the excursion, write an article for publication on McIntire’s website.
DOUG GRISSOM / DRAMA
UVA was honored as one of seven U.S. universities chosen by the Goethe-Institut Washington to produce 5-minute plays authored by playwrights across the U.S. and Europe exploring “What does privacy mean to you in the digital age?” Drama students will produce 8 plays commissioned by the Goethe-Institut and 4-6 plays written by UVA students. The plays will be fully staged in the Helms Theater October 27-28, and students will produce films of the plays.
ALI GULER / BIOLOGY
Media often portrays scientific breakthroughs at lightning fast pace, distorting the value of painstaking, methodical research. Fourteen STEM and non-STEM students will discuss over dinners the science behind recently published science fiction books and movies, exploring whether science fiction is supported by underlying science or scientific knowledge lags imagination. The goal is to generate informed lawyers, engineers and politicians better equipped to make educated judgments about issues affected by science.
KYRIL KUNAKHOVICH / HISTORY
Culture is so often captured in everyday household objects. To bring to life daily life in East Germany prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, students in The Fall of Communism and Life in Dictatorships classes will assemble and display a collection of East German artifacts, many of which can be purchased cheaply on eBay. Over dinners, students and guest speaker experts on East Germany with curatorial experience will assess which objects to purchase and how to create a compelling narrative.
MARC LIPSON / DARDEN
Marc will apply his passion for the art world in a collaborative exploration with Darden students and UVA art faculty the intersection of non-performing fine arts and economic innovation. The common ground is that both are creative innovation processes, and at their best, innovators seek feedback – artists to refine their expression, and in business to accelerate successful startups. The group will meet over a series of seminars, culminating in a trip to visit an art exhibition in Washington, DC.
NOEL LOBLEY / MUSIC
Fifteen fortunate students and invited filmmakers and artists will benefit from Noel’s substantial experience as a DJ and music and sound curator. Collectively they will curate a series of film screenings and listening sessions, exploring the visceral and emotional thrill of listening to music and sound. They will create public communities of sharing through music, film, food and conversation, hosting events in venues on and off Grounds, culminating in a public venue open to the general public.
KATHY THORNTON / ENGINEERING
Relics of technology past are of historical interest, and they inspire current day technologists to create new milestones in human exploration. Kathy will lend her NASA experience and contacts to tour 4-10 UVA students behind the scenes at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), ideally to coincide with a launch event at either KSC or Cape Canaveral. How better to inspire current technologists to imagine the next frontier of interplanetary exploration?
AMRISHA VAISH / PSYCHOLOGY
Student sentiment toward UVA’s Honor System has shifted over time to include less harsh alternatives to the single sanction. Amrisha and five students will explore the psychology of moral standards and enforcement, considering behaviors and beliefs that influence views toward the Honor System, then identify research questions and conduct research with 200 participants. The research team will think deeply about the Honor System, practice research methodology and hopefully renew their commitment to UVA’s Honor System.
2016
IRA BASHKOW / ANTHROPOLOGY
Ira teaches that making meaningful change in the world requires an understanding of the affected people, studied in the regular activities and settings of their lives, a practice known as field ethnography. Ira worked closely with small groups of students as they explored the design process for renovating Alderman Library, culminating in a presentation at a symposium including Alderman representatives.
jeff boichuk / mcintire
knows that everyone knows, “It’s not what you know. It’s who you know.” So Jeff organized an “Impact Gala,” which fostered mentorships between students and “superbosses;” he hosted a dinner that brought students together with alumni in NYC; and he worked with the UVA Solar Car Team to connect this student organization with local professionals in the renewable energy sector.
shane davis / astronomy
To make the film “Interstellar,” writers collaborated with scientists to craft a sophisticated visualization of how black holes might actually appear and behave. Shane gathered 15 undergraduate students to view the film, read the book authored by the movie’s science expert, and debate the artistic and scientific strengths and weaknesses of the film over a series of dinners.
kateri dubay / chemistry
Presenting complex science to the public often results in misconceptions and controversy – think Zika virus or global warming. So over a series of dinners, Kateri brought together science majors and communications-focused majors to discuss scientific representations in the media. Each dinner encouraged broader understanding of the complexities and consequences of scientific communications.
edith clowes / slavic languages & literature
Edith helped students explore the contributions Russian culture has made to Virginia’s state culture. Small group meetings were accompanied by Russian-catered meals, a presentation over Russian Tea at the Shea House, a field trip to a Russian decorative art exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, and culminated with presentations by four of her students at the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies.
david edmunds / global development studies
What types of settings and questions generate good conversations? What verbal and visual communications work best? David facilitated a partnership between undergraduate students in Global Development Studies and the Global Civil Society Lab to help them learn from community leaders how to institute effective social change, while preparing to implement a real activity in the mentor’s home locale.
njelle hamilton / english
Njelle invited students of color to explore black sci-fi Afrofuturism, at the intersection of race, technology and the arts by posing the question “Who more sci-fi that us?” They investigated seminal and contemporary Afrofuturist music, art, films and literature and explored the challenges and rewards encountered when students create or curate such works.
erin lambert / history
Erin teaches a seminar, “Food in the Early Modern World,” which uses the history of food as an avenue into subjects such as class divisions, religious customs and global development. Erin’s students experimented with the foods about which they’ve read, researched ingredients and recipes and prepared dinners, each on a specific theme, then documented their research, culminating in a presentation and celebratory dinner.
lydia moyer / art
Lydia worked closely with a small group of students to create a small-edition photo book inspired by the photos of artist Valerie Export, whose photos relate the human body to architecture of Vienna by positioning her body along lines of columns, curbs and fences. Lydia's students recreated that work on Grounds, exploring Jeffersonian architecture and to create images reflecting each student’s story of their time at UVA.
tolu odumosu / engineering
Inspired by Robert Frost’s poem, “Possible Roads Ahead,” Tolu engaged with students over nine dinners to consider their futures and the professions they might pursue. The first discussion was about the poem, the responsibility of adulthood and alternative paths. Subsequent conversations included guests who took different roads after graduating with engineering degrees and exploring their life choices.
bidhan (bobby) parmar / darden
Bobby took 130 Darden students to an Escape Room in Charlottesville. Once locked inside, escape is won by racing the clock to find clues and solve puzzles by generating hypotheses, building on each other’s ideas, examining disconfirming data, supporting risk-taking and making mistakes. Afterward, Bobby hosted a potluck, then worked with a few students to analyze the group’s problem-solving data for patterns and themes, culminating in a presentation to the participants.
chi yan (jeffrey) teo / physics
Jeffrey organized a theory research club that introduced students to recent development of condensed matter physics and their applications to electronic systems. Jeffrey had club members review journal articles and present their what they learned during weekly meetings. Jeffrey also took students to the American Physics Society Meeting to present their work in the form of contributed talks or poster presentations.
2015
andre cavalcante / media studies
Andre invited students and faculty to a series of dinners to discuss contemporary issues of LGBTQ culture and politics, providing relevant books for reference in their discussions.
robert cox / biology
Robert inspired students to consider careers in secondary science education and improve the way in which science is taught. He paired Undergraduate Fellows with high school Teacher Fellows for mentorship and an exchange of expertise in research and education, culminating in a field reseach experience in coastal Florida and a workshop on teaching evolution at UVA's Mountain Lake Biological Station.
nomi dave / music
Nomi organized vocal workshops for students interested in practicing and performing Indian vocal music, with classes led by a classically trained musician, practice sessions, and a gathering at which students and Indian music performers in the community shared tea, Indian snacks, and ideas. To cap it off, the group travelled to attend a performance of Indian music
zvi gilboa / middle eastern & southern asian languages & culture
Zvi encouraged students to use newly acquired language skills by conducting interviews in Modern Hebrew with native speakers, asking them to share memories, and experiences related to their language. The students also travelled to communities with concentrations of native Hebrew speakers and created a short documentary tracing their activities throughout the year.
lisa goff / american studies
Lisa took two undergraduate interns to the National Women's Studies Association conference, where she delivered a paper about Take Back the Archive, a digital archive that documents and contextualizes the history of sexual violence at UVA. The students participated in the Q&A. Back on grounds, they recommended ways to encourage collaboration between faculty who study sexual violence; administrators whose policies address it; and the leaders of student groups organized to prevent it. The students also helped begin a dialog between faculty, administrators and the creators of the Archive.
fotina kondyli / art
In addition to visiting important collections of Byzantine art at Dumbarton Oaks and the Chrysler Museum, Fotini had five students choose a Byzantine object or artwork, then put it in dialog with a modern object – like favorite jeans or a Facebook post. The semester culminated with an open event where the students shared their learnings and related Byzantine art images to famous contemporary art.
gregory lewin / engineering
Gregory held a series of lab tours at UVa and beyond to let students to see research lab work first-hand, connect them to research opportunities, help them see what graduate school might be like, increase collaboration and build interdisciplinary connections.
saras sarasvathy / darden
Saras invited Darden students to create short webisodes based on actual business situations – from famous start-ups to ventures begun by Saras’s students. Under the direction of a theater mentor, the students wrote scripts and performed scenarios which were recorded and posted to a website, inviting comments from entrepreneurs as well as Darden and UVA alumni.
laura serbuLEa / chemistry
Knowing that undergraduate organic chemistry courses are stumbling blocks for many students, Laura engaged students to compare and assess the effectiveness of various online learning tools. The students then shared their findings and presented recommendations to faculty and students with the objective to help more students succeed.
jason williamson / McIntire
Jason helped faculty mentors lead student teams to create scalable, self-sustaining social enterprise projects that generate profits for charities in the Charlottesville area, with the goals of building goodwill, providing resources and engaging more members of the University with the community.
xiaochao zheng / physics
Xiaochao bought a 3D printer and invited members of the Society of Physics Students to small group sessions in which they learned how to develop increasingly innovative, sophisticated and complex models. The semester culminated in an award ceremony recognizing her students’ most outstanding work.
2014
stephan de wekker / environmenal science
Stephan worked with students to explore the uses of UAS – that’s unmanned aerial systems -- for environmental research, teaching them to fly micro quad copters and capturing video images of atmospheric phenomena over complex terrain, augmented by a trip to Virginia Tech to tour a test site for UAS.
i-jen fang / music
I-Jen took a few lucky students to the Percussive Arts Society International Convention in Indianapolis where they observed the world’s finest percussion artists, heard composition techniques, experienced different sound and instrument choices, learned about the latest innovations in percussion instruments and dined with fellow percussion musicians.
gavin garner / engineering
Gavin realized student travel to Mars to might be outside our funding and liability limits. But robots are the next best thing, so with funding from the Henry Kinnier Award, Gavin led the HoosMining team to design and build a robot capable of collecting Martian soil, competing in a practice exhibition match at Virginia Tech, and traveling as a team to the NASA competition in Florida.
carrie heilman / MCINTIRE
Carrie prepares students to participate in the American Advertising Federation’s National Student Advertising Competition. A component of the program is a trip to New York to tour advertising and media agencies. The Jack Lindgren Award enabled the students to lodge together for the first time, and for Carrie to meet with them daily to debrief their visits, an invaluable bonding experience.
elena loutskina / darden
Elena teaches Entrepreneurial Finance and Private Equity. The John Colley Award allowed her to bring to life her Special Topics Seminar on Impact Investing. Students sources and conducted due diligence on companies that seek to generate both profits and meaningful social change. The award funded dinners over which they shared ideas as well travel expenses for students to participate in the annual Impact Investing Competition at Wharton.
Kim Brooks Mata / Dance
Kim sought to expand her students’ grasp of contemporary dance by taking them to see two world-renown professional dance companies perform live on stage instead of on a screen. At the Kennedy Center, students were taken backstage to meet with four Alvin Ailey performers to hear about life as a professional dancer in a leading contemporary company.
emily ogden / english
Emily teaches a course in 19th century literature, “Sex and Sentiment.” which discusses the expected social behavior of young women in 19th century America. She expanded the discussion to explore the expectations of young women in this century with a book club that met over dinner to discuss contemporary books on the themes of advice literature and women’s lives.
simone polillo / sociology
Simone believes knowledge involves disagreement and debate as well as consensus and rational assessment. Simone had students apply programming skills to capture, visualize and analyze bibliographic citation data, thus exploring how knowledge evolves and research changes over time. They met over meals to brainstorm, debate, and produce awesome graphs.
eric ramirez-weaver / art
Eric brought to life the goals, desires, passions and fears of medieval artists with field trips. One, to the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, showed the medieval transition to a print culture. Others, to a cheese-making Trappist Monastery in Crozet and a meeting with a local nun allowed students to view medieval culture through a different lens.
sybil scholz / german
Sybil helped her students understand Germany today, devoid of clichés and stereotypes, by interviewing young German nationals, embassy personnel and media correspondents about music, sports, politics, traditions and future visions for their country. The project culminated with the creation of a website conveying perspectives of a Young Germany.
todd sechser / politics
Todd established a Foreign Policy Dinner Series to bridge the gap between theoretical frameworks, historical study and ever-changing world events. Each week students read assigned articles and chose the discussion topic. Other faculty and guest speakers brought their expertise.
joshua white / history
Josh organized a series of “Dinner and a Movie” evenings. Each combined Mediterranean cuisine with films that brought to life his first-year seminar, “Pirates of the Mediterranean,” which uses the study of piracy as a vehicle for introducing the philosophy and methods of academic history.
2013
Stefan BaEssler / physics
Stefan held a seminar series for groups of first and second-year students to help them learn how to get started in undergraduate research.
BRAD BROWN / MCINTIRE
Brad led a team of students on a consulting project to develop and implement an international marketing and distribution strategy for Guatemalan coffee. Proceeds benefited a non-profit organization in Guatemala City founded by McIntire alums.
griff chaussee / middle eastern & south asian languages & cultures
Griff explored the intersection of culturesby hosting screenings of Hindi-Urdu films, followed by catered Indian dinner and discussion, as well as a field trip to “Yoga: The Art of Transformation” at the Smithsonian’s Freer/Sackler Galleries in Washington.
christopher deppmann / biology
Christopher stimulated interaction between students doing research, flattened the academic hierarchy and improved group dynamics by developing a long-term, hyper-collaborative, hyper-interactive weekly “tea time” for the undergraduates, professors, graduate researchers and post-doctoral fellows.
lise dobrin / anthropolgy
Lise organized a staging and audience discussion of the short, powerful play Mountain Language by Harold Pinter, bringing together undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty to wrestle with the societal issues surrounding discrimination on the basis of language.
jim fitz-gerald / engineering
Jim exposed students to the field of manufacturing through experiential learning, working with colleagues at State Farm and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, where students participated in actual safety testing events.
claudrena harold / history & african american & african studies
Claudrena created a yearlong series of bi-weekly workshops for undergraduates with interests in creative writing, journalism, the visual arts, and music, helping them produce individual and collective projects that highlight the diversity and dynamism of the “black experience” at UVA.
tai melcher / mathematics
Tai worked with a group of undergraduates to create installation-style mathematical art exhibits, which are themselves beautiful while simultaneously demonstrating beautiful mathematics.
joel rubin / music
Joel worked with his UVA Klezmer Ensemble to make a studio quality recording of their work, bringing their interactions to a new level, from choosing material, to arranging and rehearsing, to recording, and post-production work.
jennifer rubenstein / politics
Jennifer enhanced her Global Ethics course with activities that ranged from meeting for dinner and discussion with local refugees… to talks with experienced humanitarian aid workers… to attending the Annual Refugee Film Festival… and more.
paul simko / darden
Paul coordinated a set of experiential learning activities related to Rio’s hosting of the Olympic Games, helping students see firsthand the positive and negative societal and economic impacts.
steven warner / drama
Steven took five students studying technical direction to see Cirque du Soleil’s most successful shows in Vegas and explore behind the scenes on exclusive tours given by top experts in the various fields of technical entertainment.
2012
Matthew Affron / ART
Matthew enriched his seminar on abstract art with behind-the-scenes visits to exhibits in Charlottesville and Philadelphia.
ted coffey / music
Ted made a Children's Record with a small group of students, incorporating performances by Charlottesville children. They recorded locally in a professional studio, giving students the experience of shepherding a musical work from beginning to professionally-realized end, with the project released digitally on iTunes. The project culminated in a release party with a live performance.
dana elzey / engineering
Dana held a series of evening seminars for engineering undergraduates interested in graduate study and, potentially, in an academic career. The seminars had two main goals: to introduce participants to the life and work of faculty in engineering, and to guide them in the preparation of an 'intro to engineering' seminar they then delivered to a high school audience.
craig group / physics
Craig enjoys incorporating physics demos into his lectures. He shared this passion by organizing a series of meetings with physics majors where they not only investigated the demonstrations, and analyzed how they work, but also discussed new ways to use and to improve the demos and create new ones, to be presented at the annual “Physics Day Show” with an audience of 200+ elementary-school aged children.
yael grushka-cockayne / darden
In 2011 there were only 18 women CEO’s among the Fortune 500 companies. To promote the success of the women MBAs, and more broadly, female students in all STEM areas, Yael believes they need good role models. So she took students to attend the TEDxWomen 2012 events, with the goal of advancing the involvement, the confidence and ultimately the success of her female students.
tomoko marshall / east asian language, literatures & cultures
Tomoko engaged a small group of Japanese language majors to explore Japanese culture in ordinary life, through hands on activities and rich dialogues, with food, music and arts.
caitlin mcleod / drama
Caitlin worked with undergraduate students to write and produce an undergraduate work of theater, then transported the show to New York, and produced it for two nights in an Off-Off Broadway Venue in the East Village.
hanadi al-samman / arabic
Hanadial's seminar “Contemporary Culture and Society of the Contemporary Arab Middle East” explores the history of democratic change and its manifestations in contemporary film and literature. She enriched the class with eight cultural nights, each focused on a separate Arab country, which has either completed or is still undergoing revolution, hosting guests from the Charlottesville’s Arab-American community, as well as introducing the students to grass-roots organizations based in Washington D.C., that were supporting the democratic ideals of the Arab Spring.
adrienne ward / drama
Adrienne helped students “Discover Italy in Charlottesville" with a series of gatherings and adventures entitled "Italianissimo!" Italian Studies majors as well as students in beginning and intermediate language classes joined Adrienne and other Italian Studies faculty in a variety of events.
2011
Gregory Fairchild / Darden
Gregory worked with students to explore whether providing prison inmates with entrepreneurship training can give the inmates skills for successful re-entry to society and lower their rates of recidivism.
Gabriel Finder / German
Gabriel enriched his students’ understanding of the Holocaust by bringing survivors to Charlottesville, not just to speak, but to spend time with students in meaningful conversation, even sharing a meal.
Coulter George / Classics
Taking inspiration from Plato and his legendary symposium, Coulter hosted dinners at which students gathered for themed discussions. As a springboard, each student had to make a short speech on an element of speech, whether it be the derivations of the word “kin” or the ancient names of God.
Bonnie Gordon / Music
Bonnie mentored UVa students as they in turn mentored underserved third and fourth graders. Together both groups of students experienced a variety of new arts events.
Christian Gromoll / Mathematics
Christian invited a small group of student to attend "Bee-School." Christian keeps several colonies of bees and studies their decision-making logic, not unlike that required to run any successful manufacturing business. He and his students met for meals, scholarly research, hands-on bee-keeping work, field trips and more as they unraveled the mathematics of the hive.
martien Halvorsen-Taylor / religious studies
Martien says one of the best words of advice she ever got was to “make a standing date with a piece of art.” Martien invited her students to make a standing date with stories from the Hebrew bible, gathering at her home for meals to reflect on what those ancient stories have to tell us today.
sarah kucenas / biology
Sarah brought young female scientists together every month or to talk about what it takes to be a woman in science and address any difficulties they have had or were afraid of encountering.
Maurie McInnis / ART HISTORY
Maurie enhanced her course called Art and Abolitionism by having students research object and book in the Special Collections library for inclusion in an exhibit; they gathered regularly for dinner and a movie to discuss popular films about the era, such as Amistad and Glory; and several students accompanied Maurie on a research trip to Massachusetts.
jamie morris / biology
Jamie worked with a small group of students to create learning and teaching tools that demonstrated the latest in research about the human brain.
matthew reidenbach / environmental sciences
Matthew invited a few very lucky students to accompany him on his research project in Bocas del Toro in the Panamanian Sea, where they spent 3 weeks at the Smithsonian Tropical research Institute studying the health of marine environments.
diana vaman / physics
Diana was asked by a group of students to teach string theory, her area of research. She did that and more, enriching the course by asking the students to make their own presentations and gathering for celebratory meals. Two of her students then accepted her invitation to join her in research into the classical evolution of strings in curved backgrounds.
2010
katia dianina / slavic languages & literature
Katia took 15 students to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which has one of the best collections of Faberge art in the United States, The pilgrimage was followed by a fabulous dinner in the Russian tradition.
erika james / darden
For over a decade Erika has experienced both the joy and heartache of managing a long-distance marriage while pursuing a career in academia. She worked with students to research the topic and create a book and film about these issues as a resource for others.
paul dafydd jones / religious studies
Paul held a small seminar that considered classical and contemporary treatments of sex and gender in the Christian tradition, Christian thought and feminism, and contemporary debates about same-sex relationships. It culminated in a field trip to Washington, D.C, where students met representatives of the Family Research Council and the Human Rights Campaign.
keith kozminski / biology
Keith mentored the Virginia Genetically Engineered Machine team, a group of students who developed their own research experiment, with the goal of creating a biosensor for the presence of toxic metals. He then accompanied them to MIT to present their research.
cameron mura / chemistry
Cameron put together a group of students, half from chemistry and biology, the other half from computational science, for a series of biweekly 90-minute lunchtime lectures on the exciting new field of computational biology. The series culminated with an end-of-semester field trip to the National Institute of Health.
chris neu / physics
Chris conducted a seminar on the physics of sports: why a curve ball curves, how Beckham bends it, the spiral pass in football and so on. Readings and lessons were followed by field research – playing field research, that is– plus gatherings at Chris’ house to watch the principles in action during sporting events on TV.
john parker / english
John took his Shakespeare seminar on three field trips: the first two were to the Blackfriars Theater in Staunton for performances of The Comedy of Errors and Measure for Measure, each followed by a discussion with the cast; the third was to the Folger Shakespeare Library in DC, to examine the world's leading collection of early modern play texts.
josipa roksa / sociology
Josipa has made national headlines with her research on why college students are failing to develop the basic skills of critical thinking. Josipa guided a group of students to research the issue from the student perspective, with the goal of writing a paper for presentation at the Southern Sociological conference.
tyler jo smith / art
Tyler Jo often wished her students could learn about ancient Greek vases not just from pictures, but by holding them in their hands. So , working their way up from the UVa Art Museum to Richmond’s Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the students went behind the scenes with curators to interact with priceless treasures and create priceless memories.
brian wiltgen / psychology
Brian added depth to his course on memory by taking students to visit laboratories that are conducting contemporary research, both at UVa and at the National Institute of Mental Health, an experience they will long remember.
2009
stephanie berard / french
Stephanie took a group of students in her French Literature course to study French art from the corresponding time period at the National Gallery in DC. They topped off their artistic explorations with a gastronomic one at a French Restaurant.
kevin jerome everson / art
Kevin took three seniors to the 2010 Experimental Film Congress at the Ontario College of Art and Design, in Toronto to hear artists and scholars discuss the state of international experimental filmmaking and scholarship.
casey lichtendahl / darden
Casey selected students to accompany him on a pilgrimage to visit “The Oracle of Omaha,” Warren Buffett, at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting.
amori yee mikami / psychology
Amori has done extensive research on why some children have difficulty making friends. She worked a group of students to create a one day carnival with activities designed to help young children improve their relationship skills, giving students hands-on opportunities to both learn and serve.
Michael Puri / Music
Michael took students from one of his music theory classes to a recital of classical music, preparing them for the experience by having them study in advance the repertoire to be performed and discussing their discoveries over dinner prior to the recital.
keith williams / physics
Keith organized a “Survival Seminar” in which participants competed to grow subsistence crops at the Hereford College mini-farm, computing the survival value of their yields and conducting experiments in ethanol production and sustainability, with field trips to historic farms and frequent gatherings for dinner.
2008
Linda Columbus / Chemistry
Linda created opportunities for her undergraduate research students to take turns presenting and discussing their work, helping develop the confidence, critical thinking and communication skills for a future in science
alev erisir / psychology
Alev escorted Virginia students to the Annual Meeting of the Society of Neurosciences in Washington to attend symposia, lectures workshops and research presentations.
Mary Margaret Frank / Darden
Mary Margaret engaged students across various graduate programs in an exploration of HIV/AIDS within the United States and abroad, focusing on the disproportionate effect epidemic has had on minority communities.
Mitch Green / philosophy
Mitch teaches a popular course called “Know Thyself” that synthesizes teachings from philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, even Buddhism. He invited students to “Know Thyself on Two wheels” helping them prepare physically, mentally and spiritually for participation in the MS 150 bike ride. They called their team the Meadiorites
Deborah Lawrence / Environmental Science
Deborah is an expert on rainforest ecosytems. For some reasons students assume this also makes an expert on sustainable living and have asked her to teach a course on it. So she turned the tables and had students help her design just such a course.
Deborah McGrady / French
Deborah, who teaches a course on Joan of Arc, decided to light a fire under her students with field trips to experience arts inspired by Ms. Arc and artifacts from her era.
MARGARITA NAFPAKTITIS / Slavic Languages
Margarita had her students make a video travelogue about Charlottesville; the twist was that they had to do it in Polish.
Ignacio Provencio / Biology
Ignacio escorted Virginia students to the Annual Meeting of the Society of Neurosciences in Washington to attend symposia, lectures workshops and research presentations.
Michael Rasbury / Drama
Michael assembled an interdisciplinary group of students to see if it’s actually possible to express the things you see as things you hear, exploring the creative process in the process.
chad wellmon/ german
Chad's J-Term study-abroad seminar used Berlin as his classroom; Mead Endowment funds helped him take students to stroll and learn on those historic boulevards.
2007
majida bargach / french
Majida called her program “Around the world in Charlottesville” and took her students to visit with local families who hail from distant parts of the globe, to learn the cultures, experience their way of living and try their cooking.
Melvin Butler / Music
Dean Dass / Art
Dean Harman / Chemistry
michelle kisliuk / music
Michelle created a multicultural African drumming and dance troop that combined scholarship with practices and performances.
Nilange Liyanage / physics
Nilange accompanied physics students to the Jefferson National Particle Accelerator in Newport News to participate in research.
Chuck MatthewEs / religious studies
Chuck set out to help students understand how they might combine their training in religious studies with opportunities in public service by taking them on a field trip to Washington for visits with various experts and agencies.
Michael Skrutskie / Astronomy
Michael Smith / Politics
Lisa Spaar / Creative Writing / English
Barbara Jill Venton / Chemistry
peter rodriguez / darden
Peter helped Darden students lend their business skills to entrepreneurs in Nicaragua.
michael j. smith / politics
Tired of the fact that his students weren’t getting his constant references to classic movies made before they were even born, Michael conducted a film series for students, featuring movies with political themes.
heather warren / religious studies
Heather hiked 56 miles on the Appalachian trail, with students, a literal pilgrimage that was also a seminar on the literary history of pilgrimage. Their destination was Mt. Katadin in Maine, but somehow they ended up in the Daily Progress, UVa Today, and on public radio.
2006
Barry Condron / Biology
Christina Della Coletta / Italian
sherwood frey / darden
Sherwood worked with students in to study the viability of creating a Campus Kitchen that would collect unused food from University Food Service and distribute it to local charities that feed the homeless and hungry.
Gregory Hays / Classics
Maurie McInnis / Art History
christian mcmillen / history & american studies
Christian took a group of students on an extraordinary adventure to the Hualapai Indian Reservation on the edge of the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
irena mitrea / mathematics
Irena held a seminar and many social gatherings for female math students at which they explored a wide range of mathematical principle used by Jefferson.
John Nemec / Religious Studies
Stacey Sinclair
Michael Slon / Music
cynthia wall / english
Cynthia held a 400-level English seminar on drama in the Restoration and 18th century.
2005
Lawrie Balfour / Politics
Beth Bjorkland / German
Ed Burton / Economics
sylvia chong / english & american studies
Slyvia enhanced her Asian American Cultural History class with an exciting field trip to a Smithsonian film festival.
julian connolly / slavic languages & literatures
Jullian took a few lucky students to see the New York Metropolitan Opera’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa, after first bringing the students together to study the epic poem by Pushkin and the Russian historical events on which the opera is based.
John dobbins / art
John Dobbins used Mead funds to continue his weekly afternoon seminars on Pompeii with discussions over dinner, as one of the seminar topics was the role of dining in Pompeii society.
robert hirosky / physics
Bob Hirosky put together a team of art and physics students who created an amphibious vehicle to compete in the Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race.
Vikram Jaswal / Psychology
Marianne / Kubik
Claire Lyu / French
Deborah Roach / Biology
Ronald Wilcox / Darden
2004
James Cargille / Philosophy
Howard Epstein / Environmental Science
Paul Freedman / Politics
Marianne Kubik / Drama
Wende Marshall / Anthropology
Oliver Pfister / Physics
Bruce Reynolds / Economics
cass sackett / physics
Cass paired students from the art and physics departments to propose artworks that would use principles of light and optics. He then worked with the winning team to create an installation that was displayed in the hallways of the physics building.
Bethany Teachman / Psychology
William Thomas / History
Will used Mead Endowment funds to help two groups of students create a broadcast quality documentary on the civil right era archival footage rescued from local Virginia television stations. The title is “Rising Up”, and at its premiere, that’s just what the audience did, with a standing ovation. It later aired on PBS.
Lisa Woolfork / English
2003
TALBOT BREWER / CLASSICS
To recreate Plato’s “Symposium,” Tal invited a group of philosophically serious undergraduates and professors from various disciplines to read influential works on the nature of friendship, then gather for dinner and discussion to, “remind ourselves that philosophy concerns some of the most important aspects of our lives and that it does not leave our lives unchanged but ripples outward and alters the aspect of everything it touches.”
Milton Brown / Chemistry
Lisa Goehler / Psychology
Carla Gren / Biology
Jeffrey Grossman / Germanic Languages & Literature
Cynthis Hoeler-Fatton / Religious Studies
Edward Murphy / Astronomy
amy ogden / french
Amy and her students explored the Culture of Love, as seen through the literature, music, poetry, art, and romances of Medieval France. Their studies were enhanced by visits to a monastery, the rare books library and art museum, a bookbinding class and a concert of early music, as well as very French lunches in town.
RICHARD WILL / MUSIC
Richard started weekly bluegrass jam sessions with students, then took them to an Appalachian festival, where they played the main stage. The program continues to this day.
william wylie / art
Bill travelled and camped with students for three weeks across the American southwest photographing art installations and participating in performance art.
2002
Brian Balogh / History
Mary Katherine Burke / Drama
Claire Cronmiller / Biology
Cassandra Fraser / Chemistry
Ellen Fuller / Women’s Studies
Jeff Holt / Math
Adria LaViolette / Anthropology
Steve Majewski / Astronomy
Steve held a competition among his students to design an astronomical experiment, then took the winner to perform the experiment at a world-class observatory in Chile.