Cell biology receives $1 million grant

Two electronic projects share new e-Lincoln Prize

Courtesy of the Institute for Advanced Technologies in the Humanities

Art work from the online "Valley of the Shadow" project, created by historians Edward L. Ayers, Anne S. Rubin and William G. Thomas.

By Robert Brickhouse

Two acclaimed U.Va. electronic archives for humanities research and learning won the inaugural e-Lincoln Prizes, new awards of the prestigious annual Lincoln Prizes, the most generous in the field of American history.

"The Valley of the Shadow: The Eve of the War," a CD-ROM and Web site, created by historians Edward L. Ayers, Anne S. Rubin and William G. Thomas and accompanied by a book, was awarded a $40,000 first- place prize in the competition. The project, published electronically by W.W. Norton & Co. and U.Va., exhaustively documents the history of two Civil War era communities, North and South, offering vast research resources.

A $10,000 second-place prize was won by U.Va. English professor Stephen F. Railton for his Web site, "Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture: A Multi-Media Archive," a joint project of U.Va. and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Conn. The project focuses on the impact of the most influential American novel of the 19th century.

The Lincoln prizes, awarded by Gettysburg College, honor the finest scholarly works on Lincoln or the Civil War era. For the first time, they include the finest scholarly work produced in digital form on the Web or CD or other forms of electronic distribution. The prize board of trustees said the new element was added to emphasize the vast potential of the Internet and electronic scholarship in the field of history.

A jury of scholars chose the winners from 24 electronic entries and announced them on Feb. 12, Lincoln's birthday.

Both widely acclaimed digital projects were created and published electronically through U.Va.'s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities and make use of many documents from the University Library. Teachers, scholars, students and the general public are able both to learn and to conduct research about the 19th century through the electronic archives. Full story.

$202 million total sets record among U.S. law schools
U.Va. Law School campaign far surpasses original goal -- and all expectations

Robert E. Scott

Staff Report

The dean of U.Va.'s School of Law, Robert E. Scott, announced the close of the school's seven-year campaign earlier this week, after raising a record-setting $202 million. That number far exceeds the campaign's original $50 million goal, and places U.Va. at the top of law school fund-raising efforts nationwide.

"We thought it was a far-reaching goal at the time, but it quickly became evident that we would surpass it," Scott said. "We next raised the goal to $75 million, then in 1998 we passed $100 million. At that point we stopped chasing our goal and realized we were chasing peer schools. Other great law schools have raised significant sums, but none has crossed the $200 million threshold."

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, New York University's law school set the previous record in 1998 with a campaign total of $185 million.

Scott said he is especially grateful to the Law School's alumni for their loyal support, which he credited with helping the school stretch beyond its earlier expectations. Seventy percent of U.Va.'s nearly 13,000 law alumni participated in the campaign.

"Bob Scott and his faculty are to be congratulated for this extraordinary achievement," said University President John T. Casteen III. "Their dedication and the generosity of their loyal alumni during the campaign have brought in resources that will help transform what was already a great law school into a national powerhouse." 

The campaign began with Scott spearheading the most ambitious capital improvement project in the school's history, a $30 million renovation that was the result of the generosity of numerous school donors, including Law School alumnus David A. Harrison III, one of the campaign's most committed participants and for whom the law grounds are now named. The final capital project of the Law School campaign, a $5 million student-faculty center, will be completed within the next two years. Full story.