University of Virginia - Faculty

Faculty

The University of Virginia possesses a distinguished faculty, including a Nobel Laureate, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. poet laureate, 25 Guggenheim fellows, 26 Fulbright fellows, six National Endowment for the Humanities fellows, two Presidential Young Investigator Award winners, three Sloan award winners, three Packard Foundation Award winners, and a winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The University's faculty were particularly instrumental in the evolution of Internet networking and connectivity. Physics professor James McCarthy was the lead academic liaison to the government in the establishment of SURANET, and the University has also participated in ARPANET, Abilene, Internet2, and Lambda Rail. On March 19, 1986 the University's domain name, Virginia.edu, became the first registration under the .edu top-level domain originating from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Faculty were originally housed in the Academical Village among the students, serving as both instructors and advisors, continuing on to include the McCormick Road Old Dorms, though this has been phased out in favor of undergraduate student resident advisors (RAs). Several of the faculty, however, continue the University tradition of living on Grounds, either on the Lawn in the various Pavilions, or as fellows at one of three residential colleges (Brown College at Monroe Hill, Hereford College, and the International Residential College).

Some of the University of Virginia's faculty have become well-known national personalities during their time in Charlottesville. Larry Sabato has, according to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, become the most cited professor in the country by national and regional news organizations, both on the Internet and in print. Julian Bond, a lecturer in the Corcoran Department of History since 1990, was the Chairman of the NAACP from 1998 to 2009. Professor Bond was also chosen to be the moderator of the 1998 Nobel Laureates Conferences, which included His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and other living winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Media Studies and Law professor Siva Vaidhyanathan, an expert in copyright law and Internet issues, moved from New York University to the University of Virginia in 2007. Spanish professor David Gies received the Order of Isabella the Catholic from King Juan Carlos I of Spain in 2007. 1987 Pulitzer Prize for poetry recipient Rita Dove, professor in the English department since 1989, served as United States Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995; in 1995, together with former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, she chaired an unprecedented gathering of Nobel laureates in literature in Atlanta. In 1996 Rita Dove received the National Humanities Medal from President Bill Clinton, and President Barack Obama honored her with the 2011 National Medal of Arts, making her only the fourth person, after novelists Eudora Welty, John Updike and Philip Roth, to receive both of the highest United States honors for lifetime achievement in the arts and humanities.

Beginning in 2002, the Cavalier Daily student newspaper has posted faculty compensation online annually.