Blue Ridge Scholars Celebrates Ten Years

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BRS Reception

John Griffin at the Blue Ridge Scholars Reception

 

In 2014, during his tenure as a member of the Board of Visitors, John Griffin (McIntire ’85) made a visionary contribution to undergraduate education at UVA with a $4 million challenge grant that created the Blue Ridge Scholars program and supported its endowment. In just nine months, with matching gifts from other supporters to raise $8 million, the challenge was met, and the first class of Blue Ridge Scholars entered in fall 2014. 

Celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2024, the Blue Ridge Scholars Program—with an additional investment made by the University in 2020 that provided 100% matching funds for gifts up to $100,000—allocated over $8.2 million in scholarships that have supported 648 students. These funds have reduced loan amounts in financial aid packages and attracted and enrolled students who otherwise might not have been able to attend UVA.

Featured here are a few of these exceptional Blue Ridge Scholars who have thrived at UVA and in their professional careers after graduation.

  • Rita Anane-Wae

    Rita Anane-Wae (Engr ’21) was born in Ghana in West Africa. Her parents left everything behind so she could attend college in the United States—a dream that was fulfilled when she received the news that she was a Blue Ridge Scholarship recipient and could graduate debt-free. A biomedical engineering major, Anane-Wae spent her time at UVA immersed in undergraduate research, including a summer in Uganda through the highly competitive UVA MHIRT program that offers underrepresented minority students training and professional development experience. Anane-Wae now works as a biomedical engineer for the biopharmaceutical company Merck.

  • Ed Radion

    Ed Radion (McIntire ’21) is a first-generation American and college graduate who grew up in Arlington, Washington. Radion was thrilled to receive the Blue Ridge Scholarship and be accepted into UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce. During an internship, Radion noticed that low-income students, hit hard by the pandemic, were getting lost in an education system that had failed to innovate distance learning technology. This realization led Radion—along with two other students—to found Redwood, an augmented reality, theme-based learning game. After graduation, Radion accepted a full-time job at an investment firm while continuing to run Redwood. He is now a software investor at Five Elms Capital in Kansas City, Missouri.

  • Kristen Graves

    Kristen Graves (Col ’21) knew what her passion was from a young age: government and history. Because of her Blue Ridge Scholarship, Graves was able to deepen her knowledge of these subjects at the University—a school she saw as the perfect place to hone her leadership skills and develop other traits to garner success in her life and career. Graves built rich relationships with her professors and peers and participated in organizations that helped her strengthen those connections, including the Undergraduate Black Law Students Association and the President’s Commission on the University in the Age of Segregation. After graduation, she worked as a Summer Policy Fellow for Virginia Delegate Sally Hudson before taking a position as an analyst at Goldman Sachs in Dallas, Texas.