Reaching New Heights

Jeffrey Toney (Col ’81) remembers the first piece of advice his father Carl Toney shared with him. “He would say, ‘Jeff, you can lose everything in life that you have, but the one thing you can never lose is what you learn. You can never lose your education.’”

Carl repeated these words to his son often, and Jeff took the advice to heart. He had an aptitude for mathematics, and by his senior year in high school he was taking Calculus 3. The Toney family lived outside of Washington, D.C. “When I was in high school, UVA was seen as the place to go,” Jeff said. He applied early decision. “It was one of the happiest days of my life when I got that acceptance letter.”

Jeff graduated with distinction with a degree in chemistry and earned a master’s degree and doctorate in chemistry from Northwestern University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then worked as a senior research fellow for Merck Research Laboratories. In 2013, Jeff was appointed provost and vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer for Kean University. He is currently professor emeritus at Kean University, a visiting professor in MIT’s department of linguistics and philosophy and served as a visiting scholar in the department of the history of science at Harvard.

An honorable father: Carl Toney served in the U.S. Navy and instilled in his son the importance of education. Photo taken during his service on the U.S.S. Solomons (CVE-67) from 1943-45.

Jeff was the first in his family to attend college. Carl Toney had enlisted in the Navy as a 17-year-old during World War II. He served aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Solomons and was trained as an electrician. After the war, that training and experience qualified him to interview with a company that valued the problem-solving abilities of young men coming out of the service—IBM. Carl spent his entire career as a field engineer for the company, working for government accounts.

“They would pick up the phone in the middle of the night and say, ‘Carl, a computer at one of our federal accounts is down, you have to come in right now and fix it,’” Jeff remembered. “He had top secret clearance. Sometimes it would take him 36 hours straight of nonstop troubleshooting before it was working.” IBM was known for providing extensive training to its employees, and Carl had to learn to work with rapidly changing technology.

Carl would bring home instruction manuals from IBM and show them to his son. “I credit him as to why I got into science, because of the technical know-how and skill that he had, a lot of which was self-taught,” said Jeff. “I have worked with a lot of brilliant people in my life—at Harvard, MIT—and my dad is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. He was an amazing problem-solver. He really knew how to think things through in a unique way. My mother was an artist and a singer, showing me how to appreciate the beauty in our world."

Carl Toney visited Charlottesville in 2005; his son Jeff was on Grounds presenting an invited seminar to the chemistry department.

When Jeff relocated from New Jersey to Cambridge, Massachusetts, he updated the estate plans he had made 25 years prior. He made provisions for a gift to create a Blue Ridge Scholarship at the University. Blue Ridge Scholarships provide support for students with exceptional academic promise and significant financial need; the Toney Family “Keep Pedaling” Scholarship will be awarded to first-generation students in the College of Arts & Sciences.

“When I would fail and feel discouraged,” Jeff said, “my dad would say to me, ‘Remember, the only way to coast a bike is downhill. And if you’re coasting in life, you will go downhill. The only way to go uphill to new heights is to keep pedaling, pedal hard, and don’t give up.’”

When Carl Toney died in 2022, Jeff was responsible for his father’s estate. “To my dad, every dollar was precious,” he said. “I've had conversations with him in my head: ‘What should I do with this? You devoted your life to community service to help those in need.’” Jeff decided he would match each dollar he contributed from Carl’s estate with a contribution of his own. The gifts from the Toneys were matched by the University. John Griffin (McIntire ’85) created the Blue Ridge Scholars Program with a challenge gift in 2014.

Jeff’s current research explores the ways the current approach to diversity in higher education—which is inclusive, but values assimilation—is limiting. “If you can instead celebrate different cultures, different languages, different genders, this opens a student up to be able to contribute new perspectives and ideas to problems,” he explained. This approach requires time to solve problems beyond a student’s classwork.

Jeff Toney at Harvard University's Widener Library, where he served as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of the History of Science. Photo by Kate Roba, KLR Agency.

“Curriculum is great, but it can be very rigid and limited,” Jeff said. “The greatest benefit comes from the opportunity to explore and create and grow with no limitations.” At Kean University, MIT, and Harvard, he has seen firsthand how financial need can limit a student’s university experience. He hopes his family’s scholarship will free future students from the need to work and allow them the time to explore creative ways to solve problems.

Jeff also hopes that the scholarship gives students the confidence to succeed. “Through the love and belief of my parents I had this intense confidence—a sense of being unstoppable,” he said. “If you keep pushing forward, if you keep pedaling, this gift will help give you more energy and more support.”