For the faculty of the University of Virginia, the life of the mind is one of action as well as contemplation. They continually seek new ways to enrich the student experience, to increase the relevance and impact of their teaching, and to introduce new programs of study. In their wide-ranging and productive efforts to advance knowledge, they have the confidence to embrace new approaches, to build powerful collaborations with colleagues in other disciplines that can yield new discoveries, and to devise imaginative and effective ways to make these discoveries available to the society they serve. This commitment to action is palpable across the Grounds and gives the University the exceptional vitality it enjoys today.

Ed Ayers, dean of Arts and Sciences, was named CASE Professor of the Year and winner of the Bancroft Prize.

AT THE TOP OF THEIR PROFESSION
The University makes great demands of its faculty, and in meeting those demands, they are setting the national standard for their peers. Nowhere is this more evident than in the achievements of Edward L. Ayers, dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Hugh P. Kelly Professor of History. For his superb teaching and his devotion to undergraduate education, he was named the 2003 Professor of the Year for doctoral and research universities by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Several months later, Dean Ayers was honored for his innovative scholarship when he received the coveted Bancroft Prize for his latest book, In the Presence of Mine Enemies: War in the Heart of America, 1859–1863, which views the Civil War through the eyes of individuals—soldiers and civilians, slaves and free blacks, women and men. Awarded by the trustees of Columbia University, the Bancroft Prize honors the year’s best work in American history, biography, and diplomacy.

Two other College faculty members,William B. Quandt and Ann Beattie, were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Mr. Quandt, the Edward R. Stettinius Professor of Politics, recently stepped down as vice provost for international affairs. As a member of the National Security Council staff, he was involved in negotiating the Camp David Accords and the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.Ms. Beattie, the Edgar Allan Poe Professor of English, has won critical acclaim for novels and short stories that depict the generation of Americans who grew up in the 1960s. Patricia Spacks, the Edgar F. Shannon, Jr., Professor of English, has accepted a third term as president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In the Department of Civil Engineering, Nicholas J. Garber was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the highest distinction accorded to members of his profession. An expert on traffic operations and highway safety, he joins nine of his University of Virginia colleagues as members of the organization, including academy president William Wulf, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company Professor of Computer Science.

Brown Before and After As the nation observed the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, law professor Michael J. Klarman shed new light on the landmark decision with a timely and widely acclaimed book. Titled From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality, the work traces the history of Southern segregation and shows how American racial attitudes changed dramatically after World War II, paving the way for Brown. The political inferno that followed the ruling helped speed the pace of reform. "Though gradual change was going on, … white Southerners, especially in the Deep South, would not have given up school segregation for many decades longer had it not been for this violent display that led Northerners to demand federal intervention," contends Mr. Klarman, who holds the James Monroe Distinguished Professorship in Law. Michael Klarman takes a new look at the court and the struggle for civil rights.

Other faculty members receiving special recognition this past year include the following:
• Joseph C. Miller, the T. Cary Johnson, Jr., Professor of History and an authority on the African slave trade, was one of 185 scholars chosen from among 3,200 applicants to receive 2004 Guggenheim fellowships. Prof. Miller is a past president of the American Historical Association and former dean of undergraduate programs in Arts and Sciences.
• Sidney Hecht, the John W. Mallet Professor of Chemistry, was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His efforts to synthesize antitumor compounds are pointing the way to more effective cancer treatments.
• William McDonough, a visiting professor in the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration and former dean of the School of Architecture, received the Columbia Business School’s Botwinick Prize in Ethical Practice in the Professions. He is known worldwide for his advocacy of sustainable design.
• Edmund Russell, associate professor of engineering, received the Edelstein Prize from the Society for the History of Technology for his book War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring.
• Dr. Vamik Volkan, professor emeritus of psychiatry and founder of the Center for the Study of the Mind and Human Interaction, was presented the 2003 Sigmund Freud Award for Psychotherapy, given by the city of Vienna in collaboration with the World Council of Psychotherapy.Dr. Volkan has pioneered the use of psychotherapeutic techniques to ease ethnic conflict around the world.
• Pam Roland of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the University Continuing Education Association. She is the lead faculty member in the school’s "Career Switcher" teacher preparation program, which was declared the best noncredit academic program in the nation by the UCEA.

Among faculty receiving national honors this year were, from top, Ann Beattie, Nicholas Garber, and William Quandt.

ENRICHING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
In schools and programs across the Grounds, faculty members are working to enhance the curricular experience. As they develop courses that offer fresh perspectives and cover new ground, they increasingly draw on multiple disciplines.

A case in point is the Common Course series for students in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Curry School of Education. Developed in conjunction with the Teachers for a New Era initiative, these courses are taught by faculty from multiple departments and show how information can be synthesized across disciplinary lines. While this approach is valuable for any student, it is particularly useful for those planning to become teachers, who must often integrate broad areas of science and the humanities in the classroom. This past spring, "Designing Matter," a new Common Course coordinated by chemist Cassandra L. Fraser, the Cavaliers’ Distinguished Teaching Professor, examined our relationship to matter from subatomic to cosmic scales.Taught in Pavilion VIII on the Lawn, it brought together experts in fields as varied as astronomy, psychology, and cell biology.

Another course that takes a cross-disciplinary approach is "Making Business Work," a semester-long case experience that gives students a broad overview of what it takes to run a successful enterprise. Offered by the McIntire School of Commerce, it is aimed primarily at first-year students in the College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science and covers such essential topics as designing a business model, understanding financial statements, developing a marketing strategy, and analyzing consumer behavior.

At the graduate and professional level, the School of Architecture and the McIntire Department of Art have combined their doctoral programs, creating a new Ph.D. degree in the history of art and architecture that will be available in fall 2005. In the new Law and Business Program, faculty in the Law School join colleagues from the McIntire School of Commerce and the Darden School, as well as real-world practitioners, to give future attorneys the skills they need to serve business clients.

The Engineering School has been particularly active in introducing new programs, thanks in part to donor support. Among them is the Engineering in Context initiative, designed to place the practice of engineering in its broader social, economic, and environmental framework. Gifts from Lockheed Martin helped set the program in motion. Students have begun pursuing a new minor in engineering and business, made possible by a recent $1 million gift from the Clark Construction Group of Bethesda, Maryland, and earlier funding from William P. Utt (Engineering ’79, ’80,Darden ’84). A new undergraduate major in biomedical engineering capitalizes on the strengths of the school’s highly regarded graduate program in this field.

The widening scope of expertise assembled on Grounds and the dazzling array of insights emanating from the University show a faculty working at the height of its powers.

In keeping with the Virginia 2020 goals, University courses increasingly offer a global perspective, and many include an international experience. The Department of Anthropology has introduced a minor in global culture and commerce. The School of Architecture continues a well-established tradition of taking students abroad, hosting programs in cities as diverse as Beijing, Venice, and Falmouth, Jamaica. In the Darden School, MBA students take part in the Global Business Experience, visiting companies and taking courses over spring break in such locales as Prague, Shanghai, and Stockholm.

The Power of Poetry As editor of the most recent Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, English professor Jahan Ramazani (College ’81) added 837 poems and fifty-one new writers to the collection, which captures the breadth and depth of new poetry for scholars and the reading public. The two-volume work has been praised for conveying what one reviewer called "the enduring power of literature and language."

A HUB OF SCHOLARLY PRODUCTIVITY
The widening scope of expertise assembled on Grounds and the dazzling array of insights emanating from the University show a faculty working at the height of its powers. Indeed, the variety and the scale of our research activities can be seen along just a few hundred yards of McCormick Road, where investigators in education, the sciences, and engineering are making extraordinary headway in their respective programs.

From Ruffner Hall, Robert C. Pianta, the Novartis US Foundation Professor of Education, has been studying the way young children acquire the lifelong learning skills they will need to succeed.To expand on this work, which has been funded by the Virginia Preschool Classrooms Initiative, he obtained a $5 million grant this past year from the National Institute of Child Health and Development. The award will be used to demonstrate how Web-based video technology can be employed to monitor individual preschool instructors and improve their performance. Teachers are volunteering to be observed and are eager to work with Prof. Pianta to sharpen their classroom abilities.

Chemist Cassandra Fraser, shown with undergraduates Anna Palumbo and Brenda Goguen of her research team, coordinated the Common Course on "Designing Matter."

Across the road in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, assistant professor Hilary Bart-Smith is developing morphing structures that someday could be used in biomimetic submarines that move like manta rays through the ocean. Mother Nature has had millions of years to design the most efficient structures and systems, explained Prof. Bart-Smith, who has won a prestigious Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering to support this work. Selected as a University Teaching Fellow, she is also the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.

Down the street in Clark Hall, environmental sciences professor Bruce Hayden is leading the effort to create the National Ecological Observatory Network, an initiative that will include fifteen sites in the United States and Antarctica and will require up to $500 million in research support over its thirty-year lifespan. The goal is to create a large-scale picture over time of changes in the composition, structure, and dynamics of global ecosystems so that we can predict how these changes are likely to affect our health and well-being.

SHARING EXPERTISE FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD
As leaders in their disciplines, our faculty represent a valuable resource for shaping public policy. Jonathan Moreno, the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation Professor of Biomedical Ethics, has been appointed by the National Academy of Sciences to serve as co-chair of an expert panel developing voluntary guidelines for human embryonic stem cell research. The panel will address such complex issues as the use of new stem cell lines from surplus in vitro fertilization embryos, embryos created by nuclear transplantation, and those created with donated reproductive cells.

In the Architecture School, members of the Institute for Environmental Negotiation worked with Fairfax County on a watershed protection plan, and they helped Hagerstown, Maryland, gain community consensus for reusing a contaminated Superfund site. They also joined industry leaders to form a coalition for sustainable packaging, and with a $300,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, they are developing the Community-Based Collaboratives Research Consortium, which will bring community organizations together to solve complex environmental problems such as grazing land disputes and forest management.