When Thomas Jefferson founded the University, he planned to create an Academical Village, bringing the talent and experience of professors from around the world to Central Grounds.
This afternoon, 1987 College graduate and Internet entrepreneur Halsey Minor will give a landmark $25 million to the College to help bring these Jeffersonian ideals to a global community, in the information age.
Minor's gift, the largest single donation ever received by the College, is designed to integrate digital technology with the humanities and social sciences program to create a "Digital Academical Village."
"I asked myself 'If Jefferson were to build the University today, what would he build?' He wanted to create the most modern University in the world," Minor said.
Today the University can only fulfill Jefferson's ideal by incorporating digital technology into the curriculum, he said.
The idea for the technology-focused gift spawned from the E-Summit, a gathering of Internet business leaders held on Grounds last November, he said.
"I've witnessed how a lot of venture- and corporate-based money has been used to make businesses more efficient as a result of the Internet," Minor said. "I've realized that in education there is a great opportunity to do the same thing, but it will only come from philanthropic ventures."
Administrators say they are thrilled with the possibilities a gift of this magnitude has for the College.
"Halsey Minor's gift is the type of philanthropy that can be truly transformative," said College Dean Melvyn P. Leffler, who worked with Minor on formulating the purpose of the gift. The gift will have an impact on "our ability to bring humanists and social scientists into close collaboration with computer scientists," he said.
Leffler said students will start seeing the impact of this gift in two or three years. He said the donation will be used to enable the University to undertake new forms of outreach and establish global connections.
"This means being a pioneer in using the new technology to forge new alliances between the University and other educational and societal institutions here and abroad," Leffler said.
The gift will not be used simply to buy new computers, but also to recruit talented professors, spur new research, and build new facilities, specifically a research center to house the new programs and more easily integrate technology into teaching, he said.
"Part of the gift, about $15 million, is designed to help create the physical infrastructure, that is, a new building that the College desperately needs," Leffler added.
University President John T. Casteen III also expressed enthusiasm about the unprecedented donation.
"The gift will allow colocation and perhaps some integration of the functions of several of the digital centers that now exist," Casteen said.
He said the program is very consistent with the draft report of the Virginia 2020 planning commissions, which sets forth future University goals in science and technology, among other areas.
Minor said another reason he made the gift was because the University has always held a special place in his heart. He graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor's degree in anthropology and was a member of St. Elmo Hall fraternity. Minor's great-great grandfather was the namesake of Minor Hall and his grandfather's first cousin on his mother's side was the "Bull" Halsey of Halsey Hall.
Minor is the founder and chairman of CNET Inc. an Internet-based company which provides information and services relating to computers and technology.
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