On Their Own The Undergraduate Experience: The First in an Occasional Series

Michael Bailey

Between orientation sessions July 27, these now first-year students and their parents milled about in Newcomb Hall, getting to know the University and one another.

While the primary focus of a university is to enrich the minds of its students At the University of Virginia, student life outside the classroom is viewed as equally important.

Over the next year, Inside UVA will go behind the scenes at the Office of Student Affairs to explore what it takes to create the ndergraduate experience and to graduate what Thomas Jefferson called “educated citizens” — individuals who can lead, not just by virtue of the knowledge they have acquired in the classroom, but by virtue of what they have learned as full participants in a vibrant community steeped in the principles of responsibility, honor, and mutual respect.

By Dan Heuchert

Early in the afternoon on the first of two days of orientation, about 400 incoming students and a like number of their parents, packed the lower level of Old Cabell Hall for a presentation on technology at U.Va.

When it ended, orientation director Tabitha Enoch, energetic even in the midst of her seventh orientation session of the summer, stepped up to the microphone.

Now is the time to make plans to meet your sons and daughters tomorrow morning at 10:15!” she declared. Full story.

Dr. Bankole Johnson, new chairman of psychiatric medicine

By Abena Foreman-Trice

Dr. Bankole Johnson, one of the United Kingdom’s leading doctors and an expert on addictions, joined the Health System on Sept. 1 as chairman of the Department of Psychiatric Medicine and as a professor in the Department of Neurology.

“It is an honor to have such a prominent physician as Bankole Johnson here at U.Va. Health System,” said Dr. Arthur Garson Jr., vice president and dean of the School of Medicine. “This appointment demonstrates our ability to attract top physicians to aggressively lead the Health System in all areas of medicine.” Full story.

Holding its own as No. 2 public in the nation
U.Va. remains in top echelon of higher education in U.S. News ‘Best Colleges’ rankings

By Carol Wood

In a year in which public higher education across the nation faced on-going budget troubles, the University of Virginia continued to hold its own in the U.S. News & World Report 2005 edition of “America’s Best Colleges.”

While the University went from the No. 1 public university (in a tie with the University of California at Berkeley) to No. 2, it still ranks among the best of all national universities, public and private, tying with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor for the No. 22 slot overall. Full story.