Thriller coming to Broadway

The Nederlander Organization, owner of the historic Broadway theater, has recently acquired the rights to adapt Michael Jackson’s iconic “Thriller” music video to the stage. It is unclear who is behind this adaptation, though it has been confirmed that songs from both the “Thriller” and “Off the Wall” albums will be incorporated into the production. Furthermore, Jackson himself is expected to be involved. James Nederlander has been highly enthusiastic about the potential of the project.

—by ethan hamlin

Arrested Development film … still in the making

For all Arrested Development fans (of which there are obviously many in the tableau staff) — never fear! Hopes for an AD film are STILL haunting fans, as Jeffrey Tambor (George Bluth) commented at a Hellboy 2 promotion in November, “It’s a go. I just actually this week talked to Mitch Hurwitz, so we’re doing it.” Although there are still questions as to a completed script, a majority of the original AD actors confirm these speculations, and Mitch Hurwitz and Ron Howard have reportedly closed a deal with Fox Searchlight and Imagine Studios. The only detriment to the film? Michael Cera, indie cult favorite and the irresistible George-Michael Bluth, is still skeptical about the film ever surfacing.

  —by stephanie garcia

The Bloody Beetroots release 2009 teaser mix

Your favorite Venom-masked, electro duo has just released its new teaser mix in hopes of drawing more crowds on its European tour with Steve Aoki, famed West Coast DJ and founder of Dim Mak records. The mix sounds promising and offers a collection ranging from pop’s anti-diva Pink to Canadian DJ Tiga. While the Beetroots have not quite broken through to the United States yet, they seem to be in the same situation that Justice was in a few years ago. Once The Bloody Beetroots create a full-length album on the Dim Mak label, you’ll be sure to hear their remixes of The All-American Rejects and Timbaland in the hippest nightclubs.

—by campbell bird

Following a joint meeting with the Commission on the Future of the University Monday, Faculty Senate members gathered yesterday to further discuss six newly introduced initiatives and what kind of faculty involvement they will require.

Faculty Senate Chair Edmund Kitch started by opening a discussion about Monday’s presentation of the six cross-campus initiatives, which include diversifying the University’s faculty, improving higher education instruction, improving academic departments’ access to new technology, incorporating more high-level computing systems into faculty resources, better connecting faculty members from different fields through technology, and building programs to make University students global students. He cited some concerns about the projects’ lack of emphasis on an outcome of excellence.

In response, University Provost Arthur Garson said the true heart of the initiatives lies not just in excellence but in reaching for levels beyond excellence. “What we would hope is that the six different initiatives that we presented are about [being] outstanding at the next level along the way,” Garson said.

Garson gave a detailed account of how many of the programs can be put into place, noting that some have more immediate priority. He explained faculty enhancement programs were particularly important at this time, emphasizing the importance of cultivating faculty excellence. The six initiatives and the motives behind them will provide a positive framework for the University’s future, Garson said.

In regards to the faculty enhancement plans, Kitch encouraged faculty members to use the Faculty Senate as a platform to discuss their concerns with the initiatives and to brainstorm new ways to seek and secure funding for their departments.

One issue that concerned many representatives, particularly College representatives, was the lack of attention to the University’s graduate studies in the initiatives.

“We feel strongly that graduate students are that core of what is necessary to make the University a great [research] university,” College Dean Meredith Woo said.

To improve these graduate programs, she said, the University must focus on diversifying its faculty and enhancing its programs to create global research students.

“If we set [hiring more faculty and enhancing programs] as our goal down the road, there are certain things that we can do in five to seven years to … raise [funds]”, she said.

Vice President for Research Tom Skalak echoed these sentiments, saying that in order to secure funding for future programs, it will be necessary for faculty members to explore a number of innovative methods and even collaborate with other schools. “We just have to develop those relationships,” Skalak said.

Though faculty members may need to find creative ways to come up with funding for programs, President John T. Casteen, III said the future finances of the University still look relatively stable.

He reassured faculty members that despite the recession, the University is faring well. Casteen emphasized the methods used to cut minor spending, postpone construction projects, meet obligations without layoffs or cutting services, and maintain the everyday functioning of the University. Not having to spend additional funds on searches for new faculty members to fill vacancies is one way the University has been able to save money, Casteen said.

He also noted the possibility that President Barack Obama’s stimulus package may include plans for colleges and universities, in which case additional funds could serve to relieve some of the pressure on state funds. This would be helpful, especially in light of more serious concerns facing the University, Casteen said, such as increased tuition, higher construction and electricity fees, a loss of state funding for the Echols Scholars Program and overall research funding reductions. The endowment has shown effects of the recession but is stable, Casteen explained, adding that, on a good note, the Capital Campaign is doing remarkably well.

“Believe it or not, this campaign is still on time and on target,” Casteen said.

As the search for new revenue sources, such as fundraising, continues, increased involvement from the Faculty Senate and other members of the faculty will be a vital element in determining the University’s future, Casteen noted.

The economic downturn will not stop the University from looking ahead, Kitch said, noting that the economy will eventually stabilize. For the moment, the new initiatives “serve as a focal point for the faculty and administration to be working along,” Kitch said. “We are on the way.”

Here’s a fun fact for the day: Did you know British singer Amy Winehouse is still alive and kicking? As preposterous as that might sound, given her known penchant for drugs, alcohol, drugs and, well, more drugs, it is indeed true. Most recently, a British tabloid, The Sun, reported that a top executive from Mrs. Winehouse’s — yes, she’s still married to her incarcerated husband — record label flew down to the Caribbean island where she is currently residing. This got us thinking: What kind of advice would a label executive dish out to Amy in her current state? To be honest, it will probably be something quite boring, but we here at tableau have a few of our own ideas. If anyone has Mrs. Winehouse’s current address, please let us know, and we will pass these suggestions along to her.

Move to Siberia: Trying to escape the notoriously persistent and degrading British tabloids, Amy had the right idea by moving away for a long vacation. But moving to St. Lucia, a popular tourist site where no one will have any problem finding her … well, that was not so smart. Moving to Siberia would guarantee massive amounts of privacy and with few extracurricular activities available, maybe Mrs. Winehouse would be forced to write a song or two.

Get Endorsed: They say the only way to kick an addiction is to find another one, so we suggest Amy clean up her act and get Coca-Cola to make her its newest spokesperson. This way, she will get all the free Coke she could want and hopefully keep herself away from the real thing.

Dinner with Michael Jackson: A mere five minutes with the former King of Pop would drive anyone to want to straighten his or her life out, so a full five-course meal with him should definitely drive Amy back to sanity — even if only because of the fear that she is seemingly on her way to becoming just as weird and eccentric in as bad a way as Jackson is. Skeptics may scoff at this Bush-esque use of scare tactics, to which we reply: Drastic times call for extremely drastic measures.

A Vow of Celibacy: It is impossible to blame only one person for Amy’s downfall, but if we had to, our finger goes straight toward Blake Fielder-Civil, Amy’s incarcerated husband. Rumored to have introduced her to many drugs and put her on the destructive path she’s been traveling for ages, Fielder-Civil has been nothing but bad news for Amy. A vow of celibacy is the only available option in our opinion, as it would mean little to no interaction with the opposite sex, and — considering her history — this can only be a good thing.

Kidnap Mark Ronson: For those of you who do not know, Ronson is the producer extraordinaire who crafted Amy’s worldwide best-selling album Back to Black. If there is to be any hope that Amy can have a productive future, Ronson is definitely a key ingredient in that recipe. We highly doubt any producer would willingly work with Amy after the year she has had, so kidnapping is the only remaining option. Granted, a move to Siberia may not be on Ronson’s current schedule, but we think the ends might justify the means.

More traffic fatalities occur in the outer suburbs of Virginia than in the commonwealth’s inner suburbs and cities, according to a recent study by William Lucy, a University urban and environmental planning professor.

Lucy said he was not surprised by the results of his most recent research because they are consistent with other data he has collected since the 1980s regarding the topic, noting that his goal was “to see the dangers of leaving home and traveling.”

He said people familiar with the rural roads they travel on each day often do not realize those areas are where they are more likely to get in a fatal accident.

“I really think people aren’t making wise decisions,” he said. “When they’re making decisions on safety they’re really making them backwards.”

The problem with these rural roads, which “are mainly two-lane narrow roads,” is that their conditions are not always optimal and people are more likely to speed, Lucy said.

As one of Virginia’s small cities, Charlottesville is the sixth safest jurisdiction in the commonwealth, tied with Falls Church and Arlington when compared to the other cities and counties in Virginia, Lucy said.

Though Charlottesville is one of the safest jurisdictions in the commonwealth, Lucy said there tend to be more non-fatal accidents in urban areas like Charlottesville. The dangers of some students’ long commutes to and from the University at the beginning and ends of breaks “sort of matches up with the common belief that more traffic leads to more accidents,” Lucy said, noting that near Charlottesville, rather than on an interstate road, is where accidents are more likely to occur.

“Interstate highways are where the speeds are highest [but] it is not where there are the most deaths,” he said. Lucy noted this is probably because there is a wide shoulder on the interstate, there are not many 90-degree turns, and there are no left turns.

According to Lucy, fatal accidents in rural areas are the result of the combination of narrow roads, high speeds and drivers going faster than they would on city or suburban streets. These are the same concerns that contribute to the level of danger in outer suburban areas, Lucy said, noting that the study’s results show that 30 percent of traffic fatalities are single-vehicle accidents, which he said often result from driving mistakes on these narrow roads and from speeding.

“It is remarkable how consistent the 30 percent has been over the past three decades,” he said.

Melanie Stokes, Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles public and media relations manager, agreed with Lucy’s conclusions about these narrow roads, adding that “more fatalities are occurring on our two-lane highways and two-lane divided highways versus interstate highways.”

Drivers on two-lane highways are more likely to be making longer regular commutes, Lucy said. “There are more people going farther from home for other activities” in rural areas than in urban ones, he added.

“People are driving farther,” Lucy said. “I think they’re in risky situations more often, so traffic situations have not gone down.”

Lucy attributed the longer car rides to urban sprawl, a phenomenon in which suburbs are expanding outwards to accommodate population growth.

Traffic safety, in fact, may be playing a role in this expansion. In recent real estate surveys, Lucy found that safety is considered one of the most important factors when buying a home, because people usually assume the outer suburbs are safer than the city or inner suburbs.

Lucy said he hopes people will take his research into account when making long-term decisions, including where they should live. He also explained that his research implies a need for change in personal behavior while driving, such as driving more slowly and cautiously on two-lane roads.

Stokes agreed, saying the most dangerous aspect of traveling is driver behavior.

“People need to make sure they’re buckled up, share the road with other vehicles, drive drug- and alcohol-free” and limit other distractions in order to drive safely, Stokes said.

After a year of praise, accolades and one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2008, Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon had to be feeling the pressure, fully aware that any new material would be scrutinized and expected to bear the weight of greatness once again. Fans, take delight in Vernon’s incredible capabilities and fear not — his group’s new EP, Blood Bank, is different from the first album but just as beautiful.

Bon Iver’s first album, For Emma, Forever Ago, self-released in 2007 and re-released in 2008 by Jagjaguwar, was a quiet success. Unknown to many except those deeply entrenched in the indie music scene, Bon Iver remained under the radar for several months. But word traveled of this incredible album — recorded during a winter spent hibernating in a Wisconsin cabin — and Vernon’s fame doubled, even tripled. Using old equipment, no production and only his voice and guitar, Vernon wrote 10 songs — a brief album with the ability to elicit infinite amounts of emotion.

Naturally, there were great expectations for the second Bon Iver album, but rather than surprising listeners with his changes in a full-length record, Vernon released a four-song EP. Simple and sweet, Vernon gently eases his listeners into the thought of Bon Iver being a band rather than a solo project. Vernon probably did not intend to return to the cabin every time he wanted to write a song, and his sound allows for some leniency in this. Blood Bank adds two new musicians while still, somehow, remaining true to Vernon’s original sound. The album is haunting, poetic, warm — the additions are understated, and Vernon remains the focus. Nothing is too heavy.

For those hoping for something identical to Emma, it can still be found on “Beach Baby.” The piece features just Vernon and his guitar — it easily could have been the 11th song on the first album.

What’s new are the other three tracks, but they are not so new as to lose their signature Bon Iver flavor. The title track features an optimism not found on the first album, as it relates the story of a couple finding love at a blood bank. Although it seems eerie and a bit morbid, Vernon is able to make it beautiful. He has found someone to confide in as he croons, “And I said I know it well / the secret that we know / that we don’t know how to tell.” “Blood Bank” incorporates the new elements of the band — subtle drums, some strings and new harmonies — but still captures the solidarity found on Emma.

Vernon’s boldest move of the album is “Woods” and yet it is, technically, the simplest song on the album. Entirely solo a capella, the track is Vernon’s voice layered several times while an Auto-Tune conspicuously turns him into a robot. Vernon can to pull it off, though; in the age of Kanye West and T-Pain, Vernon somehow is able to use a vocoder to his advantage. The sound is anything but synthetic or fake, and Vernon’s voice remains pure and organic.

The similarities between Bon Iver’s first album and this EP are defined, and Blood Bank is anything but leftovers from the first album. Rather, it is a taste of what to expect next from Vernon and his group. Do not be fooled — a couple of new voices and new instruments cannot blemish Vernon’s incredibly unique sound. Those who looked to his solitude to find solitude of their own can still revel in the 15 minutes that are Blood Bank.

Nearly all of the water that flows to the taps and shower heads University students and Charlottesville residents use comes from the South Fork Reservoir.

South Fork, however, has been shrinking since it was dug in the 1960s because of sedimentation. The South Fork Reservoir task force, which is in charge of maintaining the water source, recently completed a report summarizing the options for the reservoir’s future.

The task force considered the reservoir’s future with the assumption that plans for a new dam near the Ragged Mountain area will go forward. For this reason, the committee mainly focused on what to do with a reservoir that would soon be unneeded, said Dede Smith, a representative for Citizens for a Sustainable Water Supply.

For decades, the reservoir has served nearly all of the University and Charlottesville area, as well as parts of Albemarle County. The population has been steadily growing in all of these areas, creating a greater demand for water. Meanwhile, large storms, logging and development around the lake have increased erosion, which, in turn, has limited the available space for water, as discussed during one of the task force’s meetings.

Mark Fletcher, a task force member who represents the University, said Albemarle County experienced a drought in 2002, and although water did not run out, it certainly could have. He noted that a reservoir with shrinking storage space is in greater danger of going dry with each passing summer, which, in turn, could severely impact the University’s water supply.

As “an attractive recreational area,” Fletcher said, South Fork has uses other than water storage. Kayaking, fishing and picnicking are all allowed at the lake, and both the Virginia women’s varsity and men’s club rowing teams row at the reservoir. As a result of sedimentation, though, the reservoir has severely decreased in size, Fletcher said. Thus, a new water supply may be necessary.

At this point, however, the new Ragged Mountain area dam is not a sure bet, Smith said, because the projected cost has increased a surprising amount since its inception, and taxpayers have raised concerns that it would be too costly to build.

Tom Olivier, conservation chair of the Piedmont chapter of the Sierra Club, said constructing the dam is not an environmentally sustainable project.

Ragged Mountain “is a biologically-rich area,” he said. “A chunk of it would be destroyed for this project.”

The most viable fix to the reservoir that could address both recreational and water supply concerns, the task force suggested, involves dredging, a method of removing excess mud from the bottom and sides of a lake, leaving a larger space for water to collect in the basin. Despite its seeming simplicity, most members of the task force, including Fletcher, had to acknowledge the downsides of dredging. Because sedimentation will continue to occur, dredging is only a temporary fix and must be repeated every few decades to be effective.

This process can also be expensive; Fletcher said it might cost as much as $30 million to dredge the entire lake.

Fletcher also noted that the new dam in the Ragged Mountain area would be a long-term solution to providing water for a growing population, and the new area and construction would make the upkeep of a new dam less of a concern.

Smith said, however, he believes the South Fork Reservior task force was operating under potentially false assumptions. Smith noted that the new Ragged Mountain dam might not be built and also, if it were built, the new dam might not be economically or environmentally superior to South Fork.

“I felt the task force was restricted to only looking at the recreational benefits and not the more important issues of water storage,” Smith said. “Selective dredging is a way of improving recreational benefits without meaningfully improving water storage capacity.”

Regardless of the final decision, both Smith and Fletcher stressed the importance of finding an environmentally and economically viable solution soon.

When I first saw commercials for the movie Inkheart during Winter Break, I felt both apprehension and excitement. Inkheart, like Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass and C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, had been a favorite childhood book.

When reading books, especially those in the fantasy, action or adventure genres, I like to imagine the story as if it was playing in my head, like a movie reel.

This complicates the movie-going experience. In some cases, like Narnia, the movie versions were entertaining and close enough to their origins. Others, like The Golden Compass, butchered everything I enjoyed about the novel. With this in mind, I was a little apprehensive about ruining my Inkheart experience by watching the movie.

I received a copy of Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart for my 13th birthday. Inkheart was the quintessential young adult fantasy — it had the moody, preteen girl, the promise of future romance and the fantasy-esque action sequences to accompany strong, vivid characters.

I had already fallen in love with Funke’s writing after reading her breakthrough novel, The Thief Lord. Yet Inkheart touched me in a way that The Thief Lord never did. Perhaps it was because the protagonist — 13-year-old Meggie Folchart — was female and exactly my age. Or perhaps it was because the decisions that Meggie was forced to make resonated with the difficulties and turbulences of those wonderful pubescent years.

In any case, after seeing the movie previews for Inkheart, I found myself rifling through a box of childhood favorites to find my copy of Inkheart. The book didn’t read quite the same as an 18-year-old college student, and I also found myself evaluating young adult literature differently than I had in middle school.

Inkheart, unlike other novels characterized as YA, presents a theme that is both challenging and unsettling — the power that accompanies every word, whether it is spoken, read or written. Meggie’s father, Mo, has the power to read people in and out of books and to convey them from the Ink World to the Real World. Fenoglio, a writer in the Real World, has the power to write people into books and thus can change the future and past of all the characters in the Ink World.

Though such a power might initially seem enthralling, Inkheart presents this ability as a curse. Mo accidentally read — and trapped — his wife Resa into a book, and Fenoglio is captured by the evil Capricorn, the novel’s antagonist who wants to see his ending changed. Yet rather than relying on the words themselves, Funke tends to use character stereotypes, such as the orphaned daughter or the conflicted shapeshifter, to play with the reader’s emotions.

The overuse of character stereotypes is the norm in YA literature; traditionally, “children’s books” relied on the typical “good guy” or “bad guy” in order to communicate storylines while “adult books” employed complex characters and themes. Yet today, there is a collapsing distinction between “children’s books” and “adult books.” For instance, novels like J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter or Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight find readers across the age spectrum. The Radcliffe Publishing Course released a list of the top-100 modern novels in 1998 and included “children’s books,” such as Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White and Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. And although Inkheart might rely occasionally on character stereotypes, it raises “adult themes” about the censure of literature and the power of a single misspoken word.

While Inkheart might not deserve inclusion in a list of the best modern novels, it is certainly a warming and entertaining book that achieves what many novels cannot — bridging the gap between ponderously heavy literary elements and an exciting adventure story. And while you might find Inkheart in the YA section of the library, I would without hesitation recommend it to others my age.

My fondness for the novel is keeping me from watching the movie. Like other book-to-movie adaptations, Inkheart didn’t receive a warm critical reception. The New York Times called it “a movie that squanders far too much of its magic.” The Boston Globe points out the most obvious problem: “Why bother seeing it if you can stay home and read a book instead?” I’ve decided to take the advice offered by critics and preserve my middle-school memories of Inkheart. Experience tells me the movie in my head is usually better than the movie on the screen.

Hardly the norm for pop-rock, Chester French is comprised of two 2007 Harvard graduates, D.A. Wallach and Max Drummey. Although their music can be considered pop, indie and rock, they also have gotten nods from rappers, including Kanye West and Pharrell Williams, who appreciate French’s general musicality.

While fans of retro sounds like The Beatles or more modern indie bands like MGMT might be particularly attracted to French’s sound, anyone with good taste can enjoy their music. Both Wallach and Drummey have extensive training in music and performance, which is apparent in the quality of sound. In particular, Drummey engineered much of the music, making use of his comprehensive foundation in classical piano and jazz. Wallach, who had a background in performance, worked on most of the vocals.

Drummey summed up their music philosophy on the group’s MySpace page. “A lot of people make experimental music. We look at our music as not being experimental, but being the result of a variety of experiments — what we distilled from doing outlandish things, what are the best ideas.”

The pair met during their freshman year in college and quickly bonded playing music around campus with three other guys. They later became involved in QSS, an on-campus studio recording studio, where they learned how to create and produce music. Recording turned out to be a good plan, because West and Williams caught wind of the band through demos and both eventually offered French a recording deal. They decided to sign with Pharrell’s label Star Trak and Interscope records.

Currently, French’s most notable song is “She Loves Everybody.” Featured on HBO’s Entourage, it has an instrumental vibe blended with an old school hip-hop feel. Its playful and sardonic lyrics give the band an edge without being profane.

Other notables, which can be found on their MySpace page, include “People,” which takes on a particularly retro-Motown feel, while singing about finding “a girl . . . / in a grocery store . . . / just find somebody’s mommy who can squeeze you / in between all the chores, she’s bored” and “Beneath the Veil,” a distinctly country song that has an almost bluegrass feel because of its dominant beat. “The Jimmy Choos” falls in the same vein of “She Loves Everybody,” with an electric beat and catchy incorporation of high fashion.

The Cambridge duo has reached some notable milestones, including being featured in Spin’s “Who’s Next ’08” and Rolling Stone’s “Artists To Watch.” In addition, Drummey also has taken a famous wife, Peaches Geldof, the daughter of Bob Geldof, frontman of the Irish New Wave band Boomtown Rats.

If you haven’t heard of them yet, you will. Stay ahead of the curve and check out Chester French before they are selling out major venues like John Paul Jones Arena and the Verizon Center. Their EP is on iTunes and their debut CD, Love the Future, should be out this spring.

Student Council voted unanimously last night to drop a proposed resolution to support a referendum imposing an increase in the student activities fee to fund Council’s Newspaper Readership Program.

The resolution was dropped because Council members agreed that a proposed deal with The New York Times may be more cost-effective and readily achievable. Plans to continue the popular newspaper program are now on hold until the next Council takes office after the completion of the upcoming University-wide elections.

The Newspaper Readership Program provided 1,300 issues of The New York Times and USA Today to students every day at various locations on Grounds, including Observatory Hill Dining Hall and Newcomb Hall, during its trial period last semester. The program proved to be “enormously popular,” Council President Matt Schrimper said, adding that a Council survey showed that 80 percent of the University community participated in the program by picking up a newspaper. He also said that the survey showed that the program has increased newspaper readership by 20 to 30 percent on Grounds.

Although Council members said they would like to continue the program, it will likely continue without USA Today. Schrimper and Architecture School Rep. Steven Reilly, the program’s lead organizer, have been working with both USA Today and The New York Times to continue the program, but The New York Times has been the most flexible, Schrimper said.

“USA Today had been very adamant that the program would need to proceed long-term as a student fee,” Schrimper said.

Funding USA Today distribution would cost about $60,000 annually, Schrimper said, whereas the proposed agreement with The New York Times would permit the distribution of the publication on Grounds for $25,000 a year. Schrimper noted that this charge is “very much within our budget” and would not, therefore, require a contribution from the student activities fee. Moreover, because the program is under management by both the Student Council and the Arts & Sciences Council, the continuation of the program would only cost Student Council between $13,000 and $15,000 a year.

Schrimper added that a possible deal with The New York Times would not require the University to sign a contract but would simply be a “pay-as-you go” plan. Reilly, meanwhile, noted that although the number of available newspapers paid for will ultimately be determined by the next Council when it plans its budget, the quantity will either be the same or slightly lower than the number distributed during the trial period.

Both Schrimper and Reilly opposed the imposition of a student fee to support the program. Reilly said it was something they “really want to avoid if possible,” adding that the fee would not likely be imposed if Student Council proceeds to work with The New York Times.

Some students were also opposed to an increase in student activities fees to fund the program. Engineering graduate student Vijay Srinivasan said he “wouldn’t be okay with it the fee because the newspapers aren’t as widely available” as he would like. In contrast, fourth-year College student Jeremy Camacho said he believes the fee would be a minor sum but admits that he “doesn’t read the newspaper very often” anyway.

Schrimper also said, the Board of Visitors, however would not be “too excited about raising student fees” to support the program, adding that proposing the idea to the Board would be a “very difficult process.”

In a slumping economic climate, the University has not been alone in suffering severe endowment losses, according to a new report of 796 schools released Monday. At the same time, though, the University’s endowment is still out-performing many other higher education institutions’ because the University’s has remained the country’s 20th largest rather than dropping in the rankings, stated Leonard Sandridge, University executive vice president and chief operating officer, in an e-mail.

“The economic downturn hurt everyone,” Sandridge stated, citing the report by the National Association of College and University Business Officers. “No one institution was singled out. All of our peer institutions experienced similar endowment losses … more than 400 institutions had investment returns that had dropped more than 20 percent.”

The long-term investment pool managed by the University Investment Management Company saw a 26-percent loss in value from July through December last year, University spokesperson Carol Wood said. That equates to a decline from $5.1 billion as of June 30 to $4.7 billion as of Sept. 30, to $3.9 billion as of Dec. 31, Wood noted. Harvard University, which topped the report’s endowment listings at $36.5 billion as of June 2008, and other top — primarily private — higher education institutions also reported significant losses during the same time period. According to a Harvard press release, that institution’s endowment lost approximately 22 percent from July 1 through Oct. 31.

Though other schools might suffer similarly, Sandridge stated that the University’s endowment has performed admirably considering the circumstances.

“Many of the institutions ranked above us are private institutions with endowments that have existed for many generations and have long histories of philanthropic giving,” Sandridge stated. “The University of Virginia came late to this environment because we relied so heavily on state support. When state support began to diminish, it became clear that in order to retain our excellence — and in fact build on it ­­— we would have to rely more heavily on additional revenue streams and build an endowment that would allow us to plan for the future.”

Though the University’s endowment has seen recent losses, Sandridge and Wood both noted that they consider the growth of the University’s endowment a success because of how far the endowment has come in a relatively short period of time. Using a conservative, long-term approach to investing, the UVIMCO staff has been actively seeking to grow the University’s endowment without creating undue risk primarily since the mid 1990s, Wood said, whereas private schools such as Harvard, “have had to rely on their endowments and know the value of aggressive fundraising campaigns much earlier on.”

That conservative approach, though, is a smart one, Sandridge and Wood added, and it is one that has allowed the University’s endowment to survive — and even grow — in tough economic times marked by a fluctuating stock market and state budget cuts.

“It would be nice if we could look into a crystal ball, but since we cannot, the staff of UVIMCO is watching the global economy, the markets and even our national political arena moment to moment to help them assess what they need to do in regards to placing the University in the best possible position for recovery,” Sandridge stated.

Increasing financial strain, however, has forced the University to rely more heavily on its endowment despite losses. Last June, the University’s Board of Visitors increased the percentage of the endowment that can be spent from 4.5 percent to 5 percent. That means $163,634,000 of the University’s $2 billion budget will come from the endowment during fiscal year 2008-09, Wood said, also noting that the Board may consider increasing or decreasing the allowed distribution, within limits, at this June’s meeting.

Endowment losses and potential payout changes will not, however, affect the University’s day-to-day operations nearly as much as the commonwealth’s pending budget cuts for 2008-09 and 2009-10, Wood stated in an e-mail.

Gov. Tim Kaine proposed a 2009-10 budget reduction of 8 percent, Wood stated, on top of the proposed 7-percent cut for this fiscal year, for a total $23 million reduction in funding for the University. If the reductions are approved, everything from tuition rates to capital renovation projects to Medical Center revenues could be more affected by the cuts than by endowment losses, Wood added, especially because there is no guarantee that state legislators will not approve more extensive cuts.

Though endowment losses and budget cuts may have a negative impact on certain programs and services, Sandridge and Wood said the University remains poised to continue pursuing its institutional goals. Meanwhile, smart fiscal management practices and continued fundraising efforts will be required to navigate the downturn successfully.

“While this is the worst economic downturn that I have experienced in my time at the University, I know that the University is a stable institution that will survive an economic crisis and emerge a stronger organization,” Sandridge stated.