98-11-06:  WOMACK NAMED FOURTH COMMISSION LEADER




Brantly Womack, a professor of Government and Foreign Affairs and chair
of the Division of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures,
will head President John T. Casteen III's planning commission on
international relations.

Womack is the last of four commission chairs to be named by  Casteen in
the effort to shape the strategic priorities he announced last spring.
The initiatives -- in the arts, basic sciences, international
activities and public service and outreach -- are needed in these areas
to boost them to the level of excellence attained by other divisions of
the University, according to Casteen.

Many individual departments and professors are active around the world,
but Womack believes U.Va.'s international activities could use more
coordination.

"Coordination could facilitate everyone's projects and make the world
more accessible to students and teachers," he said.

Womack also wants his commission to find ways to institutionalize and
strengthen various current efforts, as well as to explore new
opportunities and new ways of doing things. Above all, he wants to
ensure that internationalism permeates the academic enterprise.