As the school year comes to a close, the University and Charlottesville communities will have to say goodbye to some people who have made profound impacts during their years of teaching and serving.
On weekends when Paul Barolsky was a kid and there was no one around to play ball, he would get on a bus and visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“I’d walk up to the Met and wander through the galleries because I intensely liked looking at pictures,” Barolsky said.
Today, he is a commonwealth professor of Italian Renaissance Art and Literature at the University, where he has taught for 47 years. Students he has taught have become museum directors, curators, writers and more.
One of Barolsky’s favorite classes to teach was a seminar in which students read Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and then make related projects, which included interpretations of the poem through People magazine and Cavalier Daily articles.
“The pleasure of teaching advanced seminars is for me two-fold: seeing students doing things that I know that I could not do [and seeing them], starting off tentatively, eventually surprise themselves with what they accomplish,” Barolsky said. “When you ask them to do something different than the standard paper, they take off.”
During his time teaching, Barolsky has also written 10 books. Barolsky said during class he tries to articulate ideas to students and eventually refines those ideas, turning them into writing.
James Childress, the John Allen Hollingsworth professor of ethics, has also published numerous works during his time as a Cavalier and will also be retiring this May.
Of these books, Childress pointed to “Principles of Biomedical Ethics,” which he co-authored with Tom L. Beauchamp, as his most impactful. Seven editions have been printed so far, and the book has been translated into several languages and has played a role in ongoing national and international conversation on the subject. He later served on the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, a presidentially-appointed position.
Childress came to the University in 1968 and interviewed for the fledgling Religious Studies department, which had been set up just one year before and was made up of only two faculty members at the time. Later, he helped come up with a curriculum for the Masters of Public Policy, before the Batten School was founded.
Childress said it was this opportunity to have a hand in developing a whole new department that drew him to Charlottesville in the first place. His interests center on religion, ethics and public policy.
In 1970, he took part in a seminar set out by the Law School’s Center for the Study of Science and Technology in Society. The seminar focused on artificial and transplanted organs and included both medical and law faculty. Childress’ college roommate convinced him to participate despite his insistence that he was too busy to do so.
“It became a career changing event,” Childress said.
Since realizing his interest in organ supply and ethical distribution policy, Childress has served on numerous boards and committees regarding policy in these topics, including serving as vice chair on the national Task Force on Organ Transplantation.
“This has been one of the most important areas where I’ve been able to connect what I’m doing academically with the public service [and] public policy side,” Childress said.
In retirement, Childress plans to continue writing, publish an eighth edition of “Principles of Biomedical Ethics” and teach a Religion and Medicine elective at the Medical School.
Another retiring faculty member who occupies many different roles is Professor of Materials Science and Engineering George Cahen. Cahen is also associate vice president of the Virginia Engineering Foundation, SEAS associate dean for undergraduate programs, and SEAS director of experiential programs and engineering outreach.
Cahen first studied at John Hopkins University, where he worked under a group of metallurgists and became interested in learning about different kinds of materials. He had heard about the resources the University had to offer and came here to receive his M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science. He then became heavily involved in research for 15 years.
“I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot of different things that I’ve wanted to,” Cahen said. “I feel a large indebtedness to the University of Virginia.”
Among Cahen’s many contributions to the University is his work as a founding director of the University’s televised teaching program. The program was geared toward letting the working engineer participate in live interactive televised lectures, eventually leading to masters of engineering degrees.
Cahen has also spent a good deal of time working with experiential learning project teams that go on to participate in collegiate competitions, such as the Solar Car, Mini Baja Project and Aero Design Project teams.
“I’ve always been interested in cars, motorcycles, model airplanes [and] things like that,” Cahen said. “Watching the students design — it’s just been fantastic.”
Like Childress, Cahen plans to stay somewhat involved at the University past his retirement, returning to check on the experiential learning teams he has coached.
“Retirement for me is bittersweet. Inside, I have a little bit of concern for how comfortable I will be as a retired person,” Cahen said. “I’m very thankful that I’ve spent basically all of my time with 20-year-olds, because I think it keeps you younger.”
Not only will the University be saying goodbye to professors at the end of this school year, but Charlottesville Chief of Police Timothy Longo will also retire in May.
During his time working in Washington, D.C. for a brief period, Longo heard about the open post as chief of police in Charlottesville and applied in the last week of applications. While here interviewing over a long weekend, Longo said he fell in love with the town. He was sworn in Feb. 26, 2001.
While here, Longo has overseen such emotionally draining cases like those of late University students Hannah Graham and Yeardley Love.
“People from around this nation, around the world, got to know the character of this place through what they saw in the reporting that we were part of,” Longo said. “People know this community and what this community was about because of these experiences, as difficult as they were — and they were.”
Longo said relational policing was his philosophy going into the job.
“Relationships are the essence of life. If you can master that skill, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish,” Longo said. “I was raised by parents [who] believed in the importance of relationships. To everyone who knew my parents, it was Aunt Marie and Uncle Sal, because they garnered that respect from people.”
Moving on, Longo will remain involved in police work through independent consulting and possibly by consulting at the University School of Law. Longo received a law degree from the University of Baltimore in 1993.
Moving forward, Longo hopes to continue the many relationships he formed while part of the Charlottesville Police Department and said the people he has met are his most important takeaway from the job.
“I think I’ve made a lot of friends in this community, inside the organization and outside,” Longo said. “Those friendships will go way beyond my tenure as a police chief.”
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