Someone else’s shoes Increasing awareness of disability is an element of a diverse University

Photo by Michael Bailey

“Temporarily able-bodied” is how one disabled person describes normal, healthy individuals, because disabilities can affect anyone at any stage of life.

By Anne Bromley

A U.Va. doctoral student, who is blind, tutors student-athletes in mathematics. A computer programmer in a wheelchair takes his service dog to work with him in Alderman Library. An assistant English professor, who is deaf, teaches American Sign Language and American literature with an interpreter. A student with diabetes brings to classes an unfamiliar machine that sounds like a beeper, but is an automatic insulin pump on which her life depends.

These and other faculty members, students and co-workers live daily with the particular challenges of a disability, but within the larger University community, many are only minimally aware of the issues these individuals face. Full story.

Raven Society turns 100

By Matt Kelly

Raven Society members — those Poe aficionados who exemplify the University’s best in academic achievement and service — have pondered “many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore” over the past 100 years.

To celebrate, they had a party. The Ravens, who now number around 4,000, held their centenary banquet March 20 at Memorial Gymnasium, with pre- and post-dinner receptions at Alumni Hall. Full story.

Fraser answers the call

By Charlotte Crystal

Gertrude Fraser attended a conference in California last summer for women of color in academic leadership. It was a small group of about three dozen women — African-American, Asian-American, Native-American — who held jobs ranging from department chairs and deans to provosts and university presidents. For several days, the women discussed institutional leadership and the ways in which their roles as path-breakers shaped their views of leadership. Full story.