News

Please welcome Brent Percival to The Jefferson Trust as our new Director of Development. Brent started with the Trust in mid-October, just in time to join the Trustees of the Trust at the annual Fall Board Meeting. Brent comes to the Trust from the UVA Health System Development Office, where he spent three years working with alumni from the medical school. Before joining UVA, he worked in development for Auburn University, and in advertising with Media General. Brent brings a background in gift planning, and a passion for the Trust!

While attending college, Brent was involved with student projects, therefore knows first-hand the power of alumni involvement in enhancing the student experience.  As a result, he is excited to work with current and future trustees in expanding and enhancing the Trust to best meet the needs of a growing University.

A native of Woodbridge, VA, Brent now lives in Charlottesville with his wife, Erin, four-year-old son, Ethan, and eight month-old daughter, Adelaide.

You can reach Brent at bp8x@virginia.edu or 434-243-8118 with any Development questions.

2018–19 Grant Proposal Now Available

The Jefferson Trust is excited to announce our new web-based grant proposal form is now available!  Visit our Apply page to learn more about the application process and view the form.

Also, make plans to attend our applicant information session on Wednesday, September 5th at 4 p.m. at Alumni Hall.

Proposal submission deadline is October 1, 2018.

With the start of the 2018–19 fiscal year, the Jefferson Trust is excited to welcome James Aldigé as our new Vice-Chair. Although new to the Trust, James has been an active alumnus since his graduation from the College in 2003. He is a member of the Alumni Association’s Board of Managers, sits on the reunion giving committees (additionally serving as his 15^th Reunion co-chair), participates in the Jefferson Scholars National Selection Committee and the Advisory Board for the UVA Licensing and Venture Group seed fund, is Co-chair of the David Magoon Jefferson Scholarship Initiative, and guest lectures at the Darden School of Business.

James considers his time at UVA impactful in helping to shape who he is today. “It gave me a chance to pursue a variety of interests, take on leadership roles, and make great friends. I believe in the mission of the University and its strong commitment to a campus-based undergraduate education and student self-governance.” As an undergraduate student, he was an Echols Scholar, lawn resident, a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, IMP Society, TILKA Society, 13 Society, and the Raven Society. Other involvements included Fourth Year Trustees, Inter-Fraternity Council community service chair, Big Sibling program director at Madison House, and Habitat for Humanity house coordinator.

After UVA, James went on to earn an MPhil in Economic History from Oxford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He has worked in multiple capacities in the investment field, and currently is a Managing Partner of Clio Asset Management, an investment advisory firm based in Charlottesville. James is excited to be joining the Jefferson Trust.  “Having been a part of the Jefferson Scholar interview process for many years now, I always come away from those weekends with a renewed sense of optimism about our collective futures, based on the exceptional achievements and aspirations of the applicants. At the Trust, I am excited to see what talented students can achieve now that they are on Grounds and have the opportunity to put their ideas into action for the betterment of the community, and I look forward to playing a small role in that process.”

Words on Paper, a 2018 grant, is the brain child of Environmental Sciences Professor Deborah Lawrence. The concept involves undergraduate students studying the development of climate science history and climate policy history. With this knowledge, students create interactive art of key texts (“engagement experiments”) to share with the community on Grounds and eventually in Charlottesville high schools. Combining experiment with performance art, students will guide others through our country’s climate story, ultimately curating a series of art shows based on these shared experiences. The project has already started on Grounds, but funding from the Jefferson Trust will aide in taking the concept into area schools.

This past spring, tables were setup around Grounds asking people to participate in writing about the climate story, choosing from various prompts such as sharing a fact about the history of climate science, policy history, why they care about climate change, or how they are modifying their effect on climate change. Then, the class displayed these written responses in the Mural Room at Clark Hall, encouraging people to continue to add their thoughts on climate policy and change as the art was on display. Environmental Sciences Professor Scott Doney commented that the exhibit was “a good way of engaging people in an optimistic way and breaking down the polarizing debate that often surrounds discussions about climate change.”

The art installation was only the first step in this project according to Professor Lawrence. Next, the class took the pieces of paper from the exhibit in Clark and created art as a group project. “We’re going to show the potential impacts of climate change if action isn’t taken,” shared one student. Along with the art, the class participated in the Earth Week Expo, and the project will be taken off Grounds to work with area high schools to further share the climate story. “So far, we’ve touched 1,000 people, and we hope to go even further,” commented Professor Lawrence.

UVA’s Medical Design Program addresses the rapidly changing landscape of healthcare by teaching medical students design thinking as a framework for developing and leading new approaches to patient care throughout their careers.

“It’s more than a design course. You learn how to listen and what it means to truly empathize with a patient.”
—Dhruv Desai (SMD ’19)

Design thinking is a structured, team-based approach to problem solving and innovation that is widely taught, primarily in business schools. At UVA, the Medical Design Program offers first-year medical students the opportunity to use design thinking to improve patient care. Through a series of monthly hands-on ‘sprint-style’ design workshops and structured research experiences, students learn design-based approaches to clinically relevant skills like patient interviewing, synthesis of quantitative and qualitative research data, and use of prototypes to rapidly test and refine ideas in context of team-based healthcare environments. Students work directly with faculty physicians, patients, nursing, and other healthcare team members.

Since the 2015–16 academic year, teams of students have addressed topics such as: Preventing patient falls; Comfort in the Emergency Department waiting room; Transparency inpatient admissions; Reimagining the waiting room; Comfort and privacy for hallway bed patients; Empowering patients with information.  In addition to the impact on student learning, data gathered during these exercises has resulted in actions taken in patient-care and design concepts at the medical center.

The program has been highly successful and popular with students since inception, and interest continues to grow. In addition, course alumni join a growing community of medical designers at UVA. Throughout their time at the medical school, they can participate in special events on grounds and put their design training to work through summer experiences, ongoing involvement in the program as peer mentors and teaching assistants, fourth-year research electives, and work as physicians-in-training and emerging healthcare leaders.

UVA is one of only a handful of medical schools in the country offering this type of program, and is already emerging as a national leader in the concept of applying design thinking to medicine. The teaching team leading the initiative was invited to present at Stanford’s Medicine X conference in both 2016 and 2018. Jefferson Trust funding has allowed the program to get off the ground, and in 2017, additional funding was secured through the School of Medicine to develop open-access, online learning materials to bring design thinking education to a broader audience of UVA medical students as well as students and faculty at other medical schools. You can learn more about this fascinating program at uvamedical.design.

The Virginia Women’s Chorus received a 2018 Jefferson Trust grant to commission a musical piece by music composer Ola Gjeilo to celebrate the Bicentennial of UVA and to commemorate the history of women at the university. Read more about the chorus here.

The annual Madison Lane and Rugby Road Charitable Trust Visual Arts Prize is intended to expand students’ opportunities for creative expression and to showcase significant accomplishments in the Arts. A $2,500 award is presented through The Jefferson Trust in partnership with UVA Arts to one undergraduate or graduate student each spring. A student’s submitted work must be created while he or she is enrolled at UVA, and eligible medias include: drawing, painting, watercolor, film/video, photography or sculpture.

The 2018 Madison Lane and Rugby Road Charitable Trust Visual Arts Prize was awarded to Grace Patrice Anyetei-Anum for her photograph entitled “Re-Presenting the African Woman.” This photograph is part of her thesis exhibition entitled “Re-Presenting the African Woman”, where she is hoping to use her photographs as a way of enlightening her fellow Americans about the diversity that exists on the African Continent. There are 54 different countries with over 1,500 languages spoken, but for many years Africa has been mistaken for a country. Anyetei-Anum photographed women from different countries in Africa she met at UVA to achieve her goal, with clothing serving as a way to make clear distinctions among the cultures and between being African and being African-American. Anyetei-Anum said, “Although we are all black, differences do exist in our various cultures.”

The idea is simple: everybody has a story to share. Project co-leads Amy McMillen and Alicia Wang were abroad in Copenhagen when they heard about the international organization, The Human Library. “It was such a simple yet beautiful concept, we decided to bring it back to Charlottesville,” says Amy.

The Human Library at UVA is a project that enables students, faculty, and staff at the University of Virginia to verbally share their stories and engage with other community members willing to learn. Each participant is either a “reader” who will stop by to listen to a story, or a “book” who is an individual with a story they would like to share. The project has spotlighted issues that are traditionally difficult to grapple with, such as mental disorders and immigration. But the Library also lets students share unique parts of their identity through constructive dialogues and Q&A exchanges. The sheer variety of stories shared through the Human Library has led the project to immense success with their past events, including their most recent on April 6^th. This event was a chance for students to hear from their peers on topics like picking a non-traditional path in the healthcare industry, overcoming breast cancer, and dealing with deafness.

We asked Amy what her goals are for the future of this project. “My hope for the Human Library is for people to continue to have the courage to tell their stories as well as listen to others who are different than themselves,” she says. The Human Library is meant to extend beyond just UVA’s Grounds to touch others in the Charlottesville community. “An overarching goal for the project is to help connect the University and the surrounding Charlottesville area, as we have so much to learn from each other. In the future, I hope that the Human Library continues to partner with the community and elevate people’s stories that otherwise may not be recognized or understood.”

Reflecting on the concept of The Human Library, Amy shares her own story with the Trust. “If I were to be a book for the Human Library, my title would be In Between. Ever since I was born to an American father and a Chinese mother, I have been a bridge between two cultures and have learned how to balance opposite entities. When I was ten years old, I went from living a highly privileged lifestyle in China to moving to the Land of Opportunity and cleaning houses with my family every weekend to keep food on the table.” Stories such as Amy’s demonstrate how narrative storytelling can build empathy and break barriers between people, making for genuine conversation and powerful dialogue that breaks through surface-level chatter.

The Jefferson Trust is excited to support such a meaningful, student-led initiative, and we look forward to continued success from The Human Library at UVA. Check them out on Facebook.