Dear alumni and friends

You might be reading this magazine in the fall, but you might notice that it’s dated January 2005. This begins our 23rd year of sending news of Arts & Sciences to alumni, students, faculty, and friends of the College and Graduate School. We start this new year with some changes; we hope you’ll like them.

The Arts & Sciences magazine you’re holding has a new look and a new size and perhaps has come to you in a new way, combined with Virginia: The University of Virginia Alumni News. We are planning to bring you news and features about the College and Graduate School in a printed magazine four times a year instead of just two. In joining forces with the alumni magazine, we are responding to alumni who would like to see some of the many publications they receive from the University combined.

Our goal of telling our story through the people of Arts & Sciences remains unchanged. In this issue you’ll read about some significant research advances in physics, the venerable Echols program, and the many creative talents of a drama alumnus. We continue our series on graduate students with a look at the workshop the Teaching Resource Center offers to help them get on their feet as teachers; upcoming stories will include the role of graduate students in the sciences and financing graduate education.

You’ll meet a student who traveled to China to study democracy and an alumnus whose stay in Brazil as a U.Va. student gave birth to a foundation to help the people of a Rio de Janeiro slum; a faculty member who has some controversial views on the differences between men and women; and an alumna who mediates disagreements with perspective and understanding. Finally, you’ll hear from my colleague in the dean’s office, Richard Handler, on a vital but often misunderstood function: academic advising for first- and second-year students.

We hope in these diverse stories you’ll find things that will interest and perhaps even challenge you. And we’ll see you again soon.