News

The University of Virginia and the UVA Foundation announced this month that the Morven Farm property will move forward as UVA’s “Sustainability Lab,” bringing together a broad range of education, experimentation, innovation, research and engagement in support of the University’s strategic commitment to environmental resilience and sustainability. 

The University of Virginia’s Pipelines and Pathways Working Group spent more than a year exploring the barriers that community members face in seeking employment at UVA. In February, the group, which is affiliated with the President’s Council on UVA-Community Partnerships, presented its recommendations.

This month, President Jim Ryan and his administration responded to those recommendations, outlining specific actions that could be taken almost immediately, while also looking ahead at other recommendations that might be implemented down the road.

During the June 2 Board of Visitors meeting, University of Virginia President Jim Ryan announced a $5 million anonymous gift toward the Football Operations Center as part of Phase 2 of the athletics department master plan. This commitment completed the funding for the $80 million facility that saw its groundbreaking that same day. 

As a student at the University of Virginia in the late 1980s, Gary Nimax tended to hold back on sharing parts of his life and background with others. “My parents both immigrated to the U.S. from Luxembourg. I’m the first person in my family to graduate from college,” said Nimax, who has worked at UVA since 1989 and currently serves as assistant vice president for compliance. “I received financial aid to cover part of my expenses at UVA, and I’m gay.”

Apair of hawks – possibly a parent and offspring – have been so ubiquitous and so unfazed by workers at the University of Virginia’s main library construction and renovation site that they have become the project’s mascot. Workers on the site have seen an adult red-tailed hawk, the most widespread hawk species in North America, and younger hawk perched on railings, equipment and posts in the construction area.

Cast-off student furniture doesn’t just go away on its own – teams of people help it along. As University of Virginia students moved from their residence halls and off-Grounds housing at the end of the academic year, an annual effort called “Hoos ReUse,” working with Goodwill and Refurnished Charlottesville, collected discarded furniture and household items to put to good use. Goodwill resells items in its stores and Refurnish Charlottesville finds new homes for other items.

After a six-month evaluation process, the University of Virginia has landed on a new “learning management system” that will soon be phased in across all of UVA’s undergraduate programs. A learning management system, or LMS, is software that facilitates and supports instruction in any kind of setting. It provides tools, for example, for a faculty member to share materials and communicate with students online to support in-person classes, hybrid classes that have in-person and online components, and completely virtual courses.

The University of Virginia announced today that it is beginning to transition its transit fleet from diesel power to a more sustainable alternative with the purchase of four new battery electric buses. Delivery of the new zero-emission buses, manufactured by Proterra, is expected in summer or fall 2023.

The University of Virginia is the third-best college in the nation, based on the value of its education, according to new rankings announced Monday by Money magazine. UVA jumped from No. 6 in 2020 and No. 10 in 2019 on Money’s “Best Colleges” list. 

More than 100 workers, bedecked in fluorescent vests and hardhats, gathered Thursday in the construction yard adjacent to the University of Virginia’s Alderman Library. They stood in front of the renovation/construction project to witness the traditional “topping-out ceremony,” marking the installation of the two uppermost steel beams in the project.

While the students are the centerpiece of graduation, the backdrop is the Lawn. The University of Virginia’s iconic Lawn – the greensward in the center of Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village – is a lush, living outdoor carpet that requires extensive care.

By daybreak, life at a university is swinging into action. Athletes. Chefs. Nurses. Teachers. Drivers. Start your day with a look at how UVA starts its days.

At a job fair at the University of Virginia’s Alumni Hall on April 12, the ballroom was filled with Facilities Management workers, craftspeople, managers and local contractors, as well as people looking not just for work, but for careers. Part of the throng were apprentices, already on their career path. UVA’s apprenticeship program is one pathway for those careers, developing skilled craftspeople in trades such as plumbing, electrical, heating/ventilation/air conditioning, carpentry and masonry. At the job fair, their clothing was color-coded – current apprentices in orange shirts, their instructors wearing blue – with both groups talking to prospective candidates.

For the second year in a row, The Princeton Review has ranked the University of Virginia the No. 1 public college or university in the country for financial aid. The Princeton Review released its 2022 Best Value Colleges compilation on Tuesday.

As the University of Virginia’s main library for nearly 100 years, Alderman Library, undergoes a major renovation and addition, UVA photographer Sanjay Suchak captured some glimpses of the range of work happening outside and in. This summer, the concrete exterior of the addition will gain a brick façade, just like its older counterpart, and a new connection to Clemons Library next door will be built. The work on Alderman is scheduled to be finished by the end of 2023, according to Senior Project Manager Kit Meyer.

About 70 people gathered Wednesday in front of Pavilion III under a softly overcast sky to honor Mary Hughes, the retired landscape architect for the University of Virginia. Hughes joined the ranks of luminaries honored at the University with trees as living monuments – in her case, with a Jefferson elm.

On a chilly March morning during spring break, dozens of first responders gathered outside the University of Virginia’s John W. Warner Hall for a day of active threat training.

University of Virginia leaders and UVA Human Resources as a whole expressed their appreciation for the contributions of the University’s thousands of employees at Wednesday’s 10th annual Staff Appreciation Breakfast. The breakfast, usually held during the week that UVA students are on Spring Break, was not held in 2021 because of the pandemic. About 850 staff members attended this year to enjoy food and camaraderie, despite rainy weather.

The University of Virginia Investment Management Co., which manages and invests the University’s endowment, released a new framework to invest University funds more responsibly by evaluating the environmental and social impacts of future investment decisions. The new investor responsibility framework is the next step in UVA’s ongoing efforts to invest more responsibly and sustainably. 

Maury Hall, home of the University of Virginia’s Naval ROTC program since 1942, is being renamed after John W. Warner, a UVA School of Law graduate and U.S. senator who served in the Navy. The Board of Visitors Buildings and Grounds Committee approved the renaming Thursday. 

The University of Virginia this month launched an effort to highlight events and people who have broken barriers, sparked change and shaped UVA into the university it is today. The initiative, which includes installation of portraits and markers commemorating important people, moments and places, began with the unveiling of a portrait of former Rector George Keith Martin and the installation of a historical marker commemorating the “Coat and Tie Rebellion.”

The University of Virginia’s main library is getting a new addition – seen here from McCormick Road – along with renovations to the original building. The new addition will be a robust concrete building able to hold compact shelving all the way through the fourth floor, allowing for expansion of the library’s collection.

Ian Solomon, dean of UVA’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, who currently lives in Pavilion X with his family, is encouraging visitors and viewers to see a new exhibit installed in the cellar’s hallway that brings to light some of the former residents and conditions of daily life of the enslaved workers, as well as the white professors for whom they labored without freedom. Although the exhibit is not yet open to the public, the panels of the exhibit can be viewed online.

The evolution of Mary Hughes continues. The one-time French and English teacher who became a landscape architect is now going to be a full-time vintner. Hughes, who started working as a landscape architect in the University’s Office of the Architect in 1996, retired Monday and is stepping into her third career – running Jump Mountain Vineyards in Rockbridge Baths, an enterprise she started in 2006 with her husband, David Vermillion, a retired technical analyst in Information Technology Services.

The University of Virginia announced today that John Kosky has been appointed vice president and chief human resources officer. Kosky has served in this leadership role in an interim capacity since June 30, 2020. A veteran of both human resources in higher education and the United States Army, he previously served as an assistant vice president with UVA Human Resources since September 2017.