A Strong Foundation
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A Strong Foundation
IF history has proven anything, it’s that meaningful change often begins at the university level. From medicine, to technology, to policy, institutions of higher learning serve as the birthplace for many of the revolutionary ideas that improve our lives.
This is especially true at UVA, where since the University’s inception, faculty from multiple disciplines have come together to address society’s most complex problems. Today, the University is home to thousands of faculty members, each with their own intellectual passions. In parallel and often in partnership with the University’s teaching work, these professors and researchers assemble in virtually infinite combinations to advance knowledge on specialized topics.
As these teams take shape, their work frequently requires funding, and a significant source of support comes in the form of private foundations. UVA has long been the beneficiary of foundation support. These organizations provide critical resources for work that supports their philanthropic goals.
The following are examples of current initiatives—led by UVA faculty members and designed to address key issues impacting our society—for which private foundation support was instrumental.
Building a Better Congress
At a time when cynicism about Congress has reached fever pitch, how can we ensure that our lawmakers and lawmaking institutions are effective?
That’s precisely what drove Craig Volden, professor of public policy and politics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and Alan Wiseman, chair of Vanderbilt University’s political science department, to establish the Center for Effective Lawmaking.
A joint initiative between the Batten School and Vanderbilt, the nonpartisan center seeks to advance the generation, communication, and use of new knowledge about the effectiveness of individual lawmakers and legislative institutions in Congress. Using a sophisticated methodology, the center assigns each representative or senator a “Legislative Effectiveness Score,” assessing the lawmaker’s ability to advance an agenda item through the legislative process. In doing so, the CEL provides valuable data about the effectiveness of our elected officials.
Volden and Wiseman were fortunate to receive support for their work through the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a nonpartisan, private charitable foundation that advances ideas and supports institutions to promote a better world. One of the largest philanthropic organizations in the U.S., the foundation was established in 1966 by engineer and entrepreneur William R. Hewlett and his wife, Flora Lamson Hewlett, with their eldest son, Walter Hewlett. Today, the foundation supports a broad range of institutions active in addressing education, environment, gender, effective governance, and performing arts.
Sophie Trawalter, professor of public policy and psychology, is co-leading an initiative to reduce racial inequality in higher education with support from the William T. Grant Foundation.
Reducing Racial Inequality via Social Media
Does social media affect the ability of Black students to succeed as college undergraduates? Noelle Hurd, a professor in the Department of Psychology, and Sophie Trawalter, professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, believe that discriminatory online social experiences may prevent Black students from benefiting from their new environment in the same way as white students. Specifically, they believe that these experiences contribute to a negative racial climate and may, in turn, contribute to the Black-white college completion gap.
Hurd and Trawalter are developing an effective white bystander intervention program designed to reduce racial inequality in higher education. They contend that increasing the frequency with which white students confront online discrimination will reduce instances of discrimination and foster a more positive racial climate.
The researchers were pleased to receive support for their work through the William T. Grant Foundation, which was founded in 1936 and invests in high-quality research focused on reducing inequality in youth outcomes and improving the use of research evidence in decisions that affect young people. Grant, who owned and operated the popular chain store, W.T. Grant, cared deeply about the development and well-being of children and youth.
Support from the foundation has enabled Hurd and Trawalter to test their work in a three-stage process, implementing the experimental approach, conducting a series of studies to strengthen the intervention, and evaluating the efficacy of the intervention by monitoring students’ online behavior for three months following study participation to determine whether findings from the experiment extend to real-world behavior.
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Left: Architectural historian Louis Nelson (holding flashlight) directed the Falmouth Field School in Jamaica for 10 years, bringing students along to document aging buildings and involving the local community.
Middle: Located behind Pavilion X’s garden, the Crackerbox is one of the few intact buildings on Grounds that once housed enslaved laborers.
Right: Looking west down Main Street to Vinegar Hill, c. 1920. Photograph: Rufus W. Holsinger.
Decoding Forgotten Cultural Landscapes
For many of us, the word “architecture” is loaded, a term reserved for those buildings and structures that inspire awe. A new partnership between the University and the Vernacular Architecture Forum is helping students investigate a more common type of architectural landscape.
Vernacular architecture refers to the architecture of the everyday, focusing on the people who built and used the buildings. Led by Louis P. Nelson, vice provost for academic outreach and professor of architectural history, the Recovering Erased Histories fieldwork project is enabling students to document suppressed architectural histories by documenting African American vernacular architecture and generating awareness of the importance of these places in the American story.
In gaining a better understanding of the cultural landscapes that existed at the margins of society, students enrich their understanding of history. The project also seeks to attract more students of color into the disciplines of architectural history and historic preservation.
The Recovering Erased Histories project received generous support through The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the largest supporter of arts and humanities in the U.S. Support from the foundation has resulted in three new field schools, where cohorts of 10-15 students will study for two summer terms. Students enrolled in the program will conduct documentation and research, process their data, produce a scholarly publication, and ultimately, share their findings in a report to the local community.