Dear alumni and friends

Among my great delights this first year as dean of Arts & Sciences has been the chance to meet so many of you. Whether at a late-semester picnic with College students on the Lawn or at one of the dozen receptions hosted by alumni across the country, in gathering after gathering I’ve come to appreciate how deeply your school has affected you.

I’m more convinced than ever that we have succeeded in creating a place unique in the world. Who better than U.Va. sets an intimate undergraduate experience in the center of a powerful research university? Who better than U.Va. promotes honor and civil discourse even when the issues are highly charged? Who better than U.Va. brings in strangers and sends out friends and colleagues who will work together and play together over a lifetime?

Ours is a place that offers opportunity and shapes lives. We share some of those lives in this issue. You’ll meet professors whose work on emotions has established the inseparable link between reason and feelings. We’ll take you inside our renowned creative writing program, where a small cadre of poets and writers hones its art under the guidance of an extraordinary faculty. And you’ll visit the hip boutique of two alumnae who are creating a buzz in SoHo — and among the stylish far from New York City.

From a bicycling champion, to a research chemist, to a human rights advocate, to the unconventional new First Lady of Virginia, to students who contemplate time in their photography and prose, ours is a diverse family that we are proud to bring you on these pages.

We even roll back the clock to examine the work of Stanford White, the controversial architect whose Old Cabell Hall not only closed the Lawn but also opened new opportunities that defined the development of this University for more than a century.

Change — coupled with opportunity — is our focus today. And from what you’ve shown me, I believe that’s nothing new at the College.