Category: Newsletter

Each spring, The Jefferson Trust awards two $2,500 Intramural-Recreational Awards to club athletic teams that excel in the areas of commitment, leadership and service to the community. This year, the Virginia Women’s Club Lacrosse Team and Quidditch at the University of Virginia were recipients.

The Virginia Women’s Club Lacrosse Team is comprised of 30 members, representing a variety of areas of study in the McIntire School, Nursing, Engineering, Curry School, and various majors in The College. The Club meets for practice 4 times a week and travels to tournaments 1-2 weekends each month. Organization, timeliness, and communication are necessary attributes to keeping all 30 members on track for success both on and off the field.

Virginia Women’s Club Lacrosse has grown extremely well over the past two years: from an 8-7 record in 2016 to a 13-5 record (including a WCLA National Championship bid) in 2017. In RPI rankings, the team jumped from 22nd in the country to 12th in just one year, and currently place 8th out of 82 WCLA Division-1 programs. Most recently, they went 3-1 at the 2018 Santa Barbara Shootout. Some of the Club Lacrosse Team’s off field involvements include coaching local youth teams, participating in the One Love Foundation, Lacrosse the Nation, Camp Kesem, donation collections to Heal C’ville Fund and One Goal. 23 of the club team members are also active in their respective sororities community service and events as well.

As the club lacrosse team strives to continue to strengthen the program, it is essential they play the most competitive teams on the highest (and farthest) stages. They are very grateful for the Jefferson Trust Award to help them achieve this. Currently the team is ranked #7 in the nation (2^nd in their region) and has received an at large bid to the National Championship in Round Rock, TX in May.

Founded in 2011, Quidditch at the University of Virginia is looking to have a season of unparalleled success this year. Their record has improved to 29-4, compared to a 13-11 record in 2016-17 school year. These wins have come from tournaments in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship, where the club earned second place among nineteen teams. This semester the team has gone undefeated, winning three tournaments while beating rivals such as Duke, Virginia Tech, and UNC. These successes have solidified the Quidditch Club as the fourth ranked team in the nation, making their fourth consecutive appearance at the US Quidditch Cup in Round Rock, TX in late April. At the Quidditch Cup, the team went 4-2, reaching the sweet sixteen round.

The entire Quidditch Club is comprised of two teams: the competition-oriented A team, who will represent UVA at the US Quidditch Cup, and the B team, creating an inclusive environment for students who want to play quidditch, but have tight schedules, or are looking for fun ways to exercise and meet new friends. A fun side to playing quidditch so closely intertwined with a worldwide acclaimed book is getting to share the hobby with others. Quidditch Club at UVA continues their “kidditch” program at a local elementary school in the fall, giving quidditch demonstrations at a “Wizards in the Woods” event in the summer, and the club has been invited to open a game for Minor League Baseball’s Richmond Flying Squirrels. Quidditch at UVA takes great pride in representing the University of Virginia at community events, in their competitions, and educating more people as interest in the sport continues to grow!

Executive Director of the Jefferson Trust, Wayne Cozart, presented an overview of The Jefferson Trust as a successful donor-directed philanthropy at the regional advancement conference CASE III in Atlanta, Georgia this month. Mr. Cozart discussed the success of the Trust as a means of actively involving alumni and parent donors in the ongoing life of the University of Virginia. He spoke about how an endowment like the Jefferson Trust, built on gifts by alumni, parents, and friends, can provide unrestricted dollar support to various areas of the University. He shared that the Trust not only provides opportunities for donors to support the University, but also for those donors to be active in choosing which new grants receive funding each year. This concept is new to higher education and creates an actively involved volunteer group who provide financial support to the University while becoming more personally involved in the active life of the institution. Several individuals attending the presentation expressed interest in starting a similar program at their institution.

UVA’s Disability Studies Initiative is holding its third biennial symposium this Friday, February 23. The symposium, funded in part by a grant from the Jefferson Trust, is free and open to the public. Take a look at the event schedule here.

Last month the UVA community lost Ed McCrady, a terrific father, husband, and supporter of the University. Ed graduated from UVA’s McIntire School in 1985, where he was an accomplished student and Lawn Resident. Ed set off on a decorated career and eventually became CEO of Atlanta Storage Partners, a position he held for the last fifteen years. He always looked for ways to give back to the communities that were important to him, serving on the boards of the Lovett School and the Foundation Board of the McIntire School of Commerce. His understanding of the importance of philanthropy, and the potential impact it can have in higher education, drove him to join the Jefferson Trust. An integral part of our grant conversations, Ed was a true advocate for entrepreneurial education; his voice was critical in shaping the Trust to be a major supporter of innovative programs related to entrepreneurship. We are reminded of Ed’s love for his family, his commitment to bettering his communities, and his positive attitude while working and serving others.

His full obituary can be read here.

In November 2017, 30 emerging leaders from 27 countries, students and faculty from the University of Virginia, and other scholars and experts gathered on grounds to participate in The Presidential Precinct’s Global Leadership Forum: Promoting Gender Equality in Education. Events included round-table and panel discussions, breakout workshops, small group conversations, and site visits to Charlottesville community organizations, with project-based learning components. The Jefferson Trust was very pleased to support this initiative!

The week began with the University of Virginia’s Women’s Global Leadership Forum, a part of the Bicentennial celebration. Spearheaded by the UVA Morven Programs, the forum brought together women of all backgrounds to address the “Role of Women in the 21st Century Democracy.” Participants explored the challenges and contributions women have made in today’s complex society through conversations on 21st century democracy: race, religion, and gender, leadership and gender equality, political power, mobilizing millennials, and health and education challenges for women and girls. The culmination of the event was the closing address by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, where she discussed the path forward for women in 21st century democracy.

The forum continued with the Presidential Precinct’s Global Leadership Forum, which focused on developing innovative ideas and effective solutions being implemented to ensure that women and girls around the world have equal access to quality educational opportunities setting them up for lifelong success. Highlights included small group site visits to Charlottesville’s most progressive and concentrated programs focused on education, and Design-Thinking sessions where participants learned practical solutions to complex problems, based on an understanding of target group needs. Lastly, a key application involved a full-day design challenge – in small groups participants used design-thinking methodology to tackle real-world problems in one of the participant’s home countries, which resulted in six new approaches to various challenges in gender equality in education.

Organizers of the week consider their weeklong symposium a successful event. Attendees were able to strengthen individual skills and perspectives to address gender equality in education, create professional ties among participants, and UVA students who worked on the program gained a valuable professional development opportunity. From one global emerging leader, “In addition to the various interactive and informational sessions delivered during GLF, I appreciated connecting with many leaders from all around the globe acting as agents of change with regard to women and gender issues in their respective communities. What’s more striking was for me to see to what extent projects other peers have been able to successfully implement which I long have thought impossible at home. Now more than any time before, I am armed with the confidence and inspiration it takes in order to drive the same initiatives in my own country as well. I feel so empowered to be part of this large network of young leaders.” Funding from the Jefferson Trust supported partial program costs, helping in the symposium’s success.

One of Mr. Jefferson’s theories was that an easily accessible library should be one of the cornerstones of a democratic society, allowing citizens and scholars to conveniently access knowledge. The UVA Law Library is making that theory a reality. This past fall, the Law School’s Digital Collections Librarian, Loren Moulds, and Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities, James Ambuske, sought almost $30,000 in funding from the Jefferson Trust to complete a forty year goal of the UVA Law Library, digitizing 375 rare legal texts that were originally selected by Thomas Jefferson for the first UVA Library. The Digital 1828 Catalogue Collection Project will allow greater access to this esteemed collection by providing a virtual bookshelf for these texts. Throughout the summer, this student-centered project provided an opportunity for students to gain research experience in digital humanities, learn the history of early American law and legal education, and master the process of digitizing rare books.

To date, project directors and student interns have digitized more than 1/3 of the books and the entire collection will be digitized by the end of 2017. They are also in the final stages of developing the virtual web experience. Under the direction of Institute for Public History intern, Melissa Gismondi, student researchers also compiled and organized data about the collection, noting concepts and volumes worthy of further investigation in the future. Gismondi’s contributions were remarkably productive. She wrote several interpretive essays historicizing the University’s use of the books, including Jefferson’s view on the proper methods of using the books to educate students in reading the Law. She also contextualized the books’ intellectual place in the early republic.

The project directors are planning a conference in 2018, centered on Jefferson’s catalog for the University’s first library. The fully realized digital, virtual library project is planned for early 2018.

UVA Today spotlighted the new President of the Alumni Association, Jenifer Andrasko. You can read the article here.

Since 2006, the Jefferson Trust has awarded 160 grants totaling $6,309,119 to all areas of the University community. Founded by the Alumni Association of the University of Virginia, the Trust promotes excellence by providing catalytic support to the University community for initiatives in pursuit of Jeffersonian ideals. As an agile, unrestricted resource for the University of Virginia community, the Trust supports new projects advocated by students, faculty and organizations. Please note that the Trust does not provide budget relief for existing programs.

The Jefferson Trust will hold a grants application information session in the Manning Pavilion at Alumni Hall on Wednesday, September 6 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm. For more information about the Trust and the application process, please check out the Application page on our website or contact us At 434-243-9026. For resources to navigate the application process, take a look at our Resources page.