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June 20, 2006 -- An estate gift from the late Albemarle
County educator Mortimer Y. Sutherland Jr. will provide
$6 million for financial aid at the University of Virginia,
including a scholarship fund for U.Va.’s School of
Nursing.
Three-quarters of the gift will create the M.Y. Sutherland
Jr. Scholarship Fund, an endowment that will generate support
for need-based scholarships, with a preference for students
from Albemarle County. The remaining 25 percent will create
the Helen Sutherland Berkeley Nursing Scholarship, named
in honor of his sister, who graduated from the School of
Nursing in 1932.
“Mortimer Sutherland’s abiding devotion to learning
will live on through this extraordinary gift,” said
University
President John T. Casteen III. “We are
grateful for the careful forethought that went into this
bequest, for the way it honors two loyal and distinguished
alumni, and for the ongoing support it provides for deserving
students in the School of Nursing and across the University.”
Sutherland, who earned a bachelor’s degree at the
University in 1934 and a master’s degree in 1935,
died in January at age 92. A lifelong resident of North
Garden in southern Albemarle County, he was a teacher and
principal before becoming a member of the Albemarle County
School Board and later the Board of Supervisors.
Sutherland taught at Scottsville High School from 1937
to 1944. He then transferred to Meriwether Lewis High School,
where he became principal, taught math and history, and
coached baseball, basketball and boxing. He retired in
1946 and was elected to the Albemarle County School Board
in 1954. The following year, he was elected to the Board
of Supervisors and served two terms. In 1993, the county
named the new Mortimer Y. Sutherland Middle School in his
honor, recognizing his service as an educator and community
leader.
In a 1993 interview with the Charlottesville Daily Progress,
Sutherland explained his desire to create scholarships
to help deserving students from low-income families. “I
just wanted to have something where the University could
help those students who didn’t have the funds to
go [there],” he said. “The University did a
whole lot for me.”
Sutherland’s bequest will enhance the School of Nursing’s
ability to meet a pressing need, both locally and nationally,
for qualified nurses. “This gift comes at the best
possible time, given the sustained and long-term nursing
shortage and the large number of nursing applicants who
want to study nursing,” said Jeanette Lancaster,
the Sadie Heath Cabaniss Professor of Nursing and dean
of the school. “Our goal is to admit the best applicants
possible, including those who have financial needs.”
By choosing to honor his sister, Sutherland paid tribute
to the first nursing supervisor in the University’s
eye clinic. She later worked for eye specialists in the
Charlottesville area before interrupting her nursing career
to assist her husband, University archivist Francis L.
Berkeley Jr., with his research in Scotland and England
as a Fulbright and Guggenheim fellow.
Known as “Gete” by her family and widely admired
in the community, Helen Sutherland Berkeley retired from
nursing in 1967 and died in 1993 after a long illness.
According to her obituary, she had a “singular capacity
for friendship” and an ability to reach out to people
from all walks of life. Grateful former patients came to
her home each year at Christmastime to sing carols at her
doorstep.
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