The University has become a meeting place for scholars and researchers from around the world.

he knowledge generated at the University is in demand world- wide. Although advanced communications technology speeds the flow of information around the globe, nothing is as effective as the personal exchange of ideas. As it was in Jefferson's time, Charlottesville is now both a starting point and a destination for travelers.

Dean David W. Breneman of the Curry School of Education flew to China to advise top officials there on the finance of higher education. Constitutional scholar and law professor A. E. Dick Howard journeyed to Prague, where he was honored by the Czech Republic for helping draft its constitution. Howard, who first gained fame as the executive director of the commission that revised Virginia's 1902 constitution in the late 1960s, assisted Hungary, Poland, and South Africa in creating new governing documents.

Faculty in the School of Medicine's Center for Recombinant Gamete Contraceptive Vaccinogens traveled to India to give research seminars in reproductive biology, while a number of Indian scientists came to Charlottesville for advanced training.

Other visitors included Romanian entrepreneurs who spent three weeks at the McIntire School at a business training program and Ghanaian doctors, nurses, and dietitians who spent three months studying U.Va.'s diabetes outreach program.

When the Olympic Torch arrived in Charlottesville on June 22, the whole town seemed to come out to greet it. Doug Clay, a local volunteer fire chief and community hero, arrived on the Lawn in the early evening, carrying the torch through a crowd of several thousands.

The University also hosted such notables this year as peace activist and author Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Prize; novelist Robert Stone, winner of the National Book Award; alumna and Palestinian negotiator Hanan Ashrawi; and historian David McCullough, winner of two National Book Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, now a visiting professor at the University.

A FORUM FOR FOREIGN POLICY

A key element in the University's successful effort to become an international center for the exchange of ideas is the White Burkett Miller Center. This year, hundreds of people came to hear Howard Baker, longtime U.S. senator and former chief of staff under President Ronald Reagan; General Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to two presidents; and former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. The topic was American Foreign Policy and the 1996 Elections.

REACHING OUT TO THE COMMONWEALTH

Closer to home, the Division of Continuing Education extends the University's reach beyond Grounds by sustaining partnerships with a range of organizations throughout Virginia, including colleges and universities, corporations, schools, and government agencies. In 1995-96, more than 28,000 individuals were enrolled through the division, indicating the central role it plays in making the University's resources more accessible to the larger community.

Go on to Innovations and Research

Return to Table of Contents