Letters et cetera

Sounds Around Grounds
April 2006

Your April Music Issue was great! But a stunning, unexpected surprise awaited me and my family.

To paraphrase “Casablanca” — “of all the magazines, in all the universities, in all the cities, in the U.S.A.,” the one photograph showing the long-time interest in music at U.Va. was 1896! There, sitting on the front row with his violin, was my father, C.S. Ashby Henry, class of 1899. He was also captain of the gym team, on the football team, later president of the Alumni Association and a trustee. His violin remained with him all his life.

I graduated in three years in 1937, was captain of tennis, ran slow mile, was a Rhodes Scholar nominee and have always admired my father’s musical talents.

Thank you for choosing the 1896 photo!

Richard H. Henry (Economics ’37)
Captain, USNR (ret.)
Washington, D.C.

This is to let you know just how very much I enjoyed reading the April edition of Arts & Sciences magazine with the focus on music, “Sounds Around Grounds.” The subject matter is timely. It is great to showcase the incredible talent we have performing right under our noses but unfortunately out of sight as they are forced to work in sometimes cramped and obscure locales. Your magazine was beautifully designed, the photography sharp and exciting, and the content well written and subjects well chosen. We have every reason to be impressed and proud of an amazingly gifted batch of scholars, and may they soon be able to look forward to having new arts facilities to serve their needs. They deserve every effort to give them support. Thanks so much for your fine publication.

Beth Sutton (French ’72, MA, French ’74)
Member, U.Va. Arts Council
Charlottesville, Va.

Follow up

Study aboard
April 2006

David T. Gies, Commonwealth Professor of Spanish, has been named the University’s first academic dean for a Semester at Sea voyage and will direct the 2007 summer program. U.Va. will become the program’s academic sponsor beginning with this summer’s voyage.

Religious studies
October 2005
What’s love got to do with it?
January 2004

A study by U.Va. sociologists W. Bradford Wilcox and Steven L. Nock found that the single most important factor in women’s marital happiness is the level of their husbands’ emotional engagement — not money, the division of household chores or other factors. The study also finds that women whose husbands earn the lion’s share of income, who don’t work outside the home or who share a strong commitment to lifelong marriage with their husbands report the highest levels of marital happiness — in sharp contrast to academic conventional wisdom, according to the authors. In addition, perceptions of fairness matter for married women. Women who report that the division of housework is fair are happier in their marriages than women who think that their husbands don’t do their fair share.

The grad life

July 2004
Liz Dunn (PhD, Psychology ’04), featured in an article on graduate students, survived a shark attack while she was surfing off Oahu’s North Shore in March. One bite was deep enough to reach her leg bone. “The doctor said that, based on the way the bite marks are, that it was really big, that it could have swallowed me,” she told a KHNL television reporter. “So I just feel really, really lucky.”
 

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