Board establishes professorships and names buildings

At its Jan. 31 meeting, the Board of Visitors established seven new professorships in business and law, bringing the number of endowed chairs to 419.

From the estate of the late David A. Harrison III, one of U.Va.’s most generous benefactors, five professorships will be created in the School of Law, to which Harrison left $34.8 million. The bulk of the money will be used to attract and retain the nation’s best law teachers to fill the David and Mary Distinguished Professorships. Additional funds will boost three of the oldest endowed chairs at the law school, named for James Madison, James Monroe and John B. Minor.
The other two new professorships established in the Darden School are the Leslie E. Grayson Professorship in Business Administration and the Killgallon Ohio Art Professorship in Business Administration. William C. Killgallon, who attended Darden’s Executive Program in 1976, started the company that makes the popular "Etch a Sketch" toy. His son, Martin, who is now chief executive officer of the company, earned his MBA from Darden in 1972.

Grayson, who taught in the Darden School from 1971-98, specialized in international business management. Former students, friends and associates contributed to the Grayson Chair.

The board approved naming the recently completed Darden building, which houses a 500-seat auditorium, a new dining room and offices, after the founder of the school, Charles Cortez Abbott. Abbott served as dean from 1955, when the school opened its doors in Monroe Hall, until he retired in 1972.

Darden alumnus George David, who graduated in 1967, donated the lion’s share of the funding for the building project and wanted to name it after Abbott.

The Darden School proposed naming the new wing east of the Darden library the Ray C. Smith Alumni Hall, after one of Darden’s most dedicated teachers and administrators. Smith, who joined the faculty in 1961, taught almost all of Darden’s alumni. He served as interim dean three times, has been an associate dean, executive director of the Darden Foundation and a professor teaching in five academic areas. Smith earned his MBA from Darden in 1958, a member of the second graduating class. He will retire this spring.