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Four U.Va. students given Kenan Awards to study Academical Village

Recipients given grants to conduct University research projects

<p>A previous Title IX investigation which concluded last Sept. resulted in an overhaul of the University's handling of sexual assault cases.&nbsp;</p>

A previous Title IX investigation which concluded last Sept. resulted in an overhaul of the University's handling of sexual assault cases. 

This summer, four scholars researching the history of the University will receive grants offered by the William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment Fund of the Academical Village.

One of the 2016 recipients, Megan Friedman, is currently a graduate student in the School of Architecture planning to research neoclassical influences on Jefferson’s designs for the Lawn and its adjacent buildings. She will use a portion of the grant to conduct field work in Italy.

Baxter Craven, another graduate student in the School of Architecture and award recipient, is researching the role of student organizations in the growth and architectural development of Jefferson’s original structures, including the Jefferson Society’s renovation of Hotel C.

2013 College graduates Thomas Howard and Owen Gallogly, both previous Kenan award recipients, will jointly use their 2016 grant to fund the publication of “Society Ties,” a book about how the Jefferson Society and other student clubs have shaped life at the University.

Howard said the initial Kenan award allows him and Gallogly to devote an entire summer to researching their developing book — delving into newspapers, letters and other documents pertaining to the Society, which was founded in 1825.

Howard said he hopes the book will fill in some gaps in the public understanding about the University’s history.

“There are books and books and books, but a lot of them are administrative and kind of big, organizational — this professor was hired, and then this professor was hired, and this building was built, and then we got a president,” Howard said. “None of them were really focused on the history of student life, or put students at the center of shaping educational life here.”

Howard said he and Gallogly are emphasizing the role of student perspective in their research.

“That’s something I feel really strongly we wanted to show, to take students and place them at the center, and I think the Jefferson Society is a really natural way of doing that, since it has been there the whole time.”

Howard said student clubs, including the Jefferson Society and the rival Washington Society, have been crucial in shaping the University’s culture and traditions, and have been largely overlooked.

“They did everything. Graduation as we know it today — what was then called Final Celebrations — was started by the societies. They invited the student who would speak,” Howard said. “If you were a 20-year-old in 1850 who suddenly got to speak next to John Tyler, that was a big deal. This wasn’t like the uncontested student council elections we have today.”

Howard said he hopes to see “Society Ties” published by the Kenan Endowment in conjunction with the University of Virginia Press by spring 2017.

Programs like the Kenan Endowment often receive little attention, Brian Cullaty, the Director of Undergraduate Research Opportunities in the University's Center for Undergraduate Excellence, said.

Cullaty said the program received just four applications this year, even though the endowment provides up to five grants every year.

“This is money that’s not being fully accessed, so we’d love students to know about that so it can be fully used,” Cullaty said.

The Kenan awards are open to applications from both undergraduate and graduate students at the University. 

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