At Fall Convocation Friday afternoon, University President John T. Casteen, III presented the Thomas Jefferson Award, the University’s highest honor, to both Dean of Admissions John Blackburn and Sharon Hostler, interim vice provost for faculty advancement. This year marks only the second time two people have received the award in one year.
In his remarks about Blackburn, Casteen said, “with steadfast wisdom, judgment and uncommon integrity, Mr. Blackburn has selected the students for each year’s entering class for nearly a quarter-century.”
Casteen also focused on Blackburn’s dedication to diversity and fair access for all students.
“Each year, Mr. Blackburn visits personally with students of diverse racial, ethnic and social backgrounds, encouraging them to consider applying for admission to U.Va.,” Casteen said. “By making disadvantaged students aware of the AccessUVa financial-aid program, he has enabled hundreds of young women and men to study here despite their limited financial means.”
Assoc. Dean of Admissions Greg Roberts, who wrote a letter supporting Blackburn’s nomination, said Blackburn is not only a leader at the University but also a genuinely good person.
“He is a wonderful, wonderful human being,” Roberts said. “He is the kindest, most caring and compassionate man I have ever known.”
Roberts also described Blackburn as a trailblazer in the field of admissions, especially regarding access and affordability.
“His whole life is dedicated to values that would have been very important to Jefferson,” Roberts said.
Spanish Prof. David Gies said Blackburn is one of the most important people at the University.
“We on the faculty ... are always crowing about how wonderful the students are, and he and his staff are the people who produce [the students],” Gies said. “If they did a lousy job, our jobs would be completely different and much more difficult.”
Blackburn, who will be retiring in 2009, stated in an e-mail that he is honored and humbled to be a Jefferson Award recipient.
“I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined receiving the Thomas Jefferson Award,” he stated.
Sharon Hostler, currently serving as interim vice provost for faculty advancement, has been a member of the University faculty since 1969.
“Dr. Hostler was the first woman in the School of Medicine to hold an endowed professorship,” Casteen said about Hostler. “She has been an advocate for children, families of sick children, students, women, junior faculty and nascent leaders.”
Susan Pollart, associate dean for faculty development, noted Hostler’s accomplishments in the field of pediatric medicine.
Before Hostler, “care had focused on the doctor and what they could do for the patient,” Pollart said. Hostler worked to shift the focus to the patients and their families and coined the term “patient-centered care,” Pollart said.
Marcia Day Childress, Humanities Programs director at the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities and Hostler’s primary nominator, praised Hostler’s “advocacy on behalf of women, gender equity and a more humane culture in academic medicine and in academe generally, both here in Charlottesville and nationwide.”
Childress also said Hostler will work to put some of the programs she helped develop for medical faculty into place for all faculty across the University community.
Asst. Anesthesiology Prof. Farnaz Gazoni said she first met Hostler — who could not be reached for comment — when she shadowed her 12 years ago as a pre-medical student at the University.
“Dr. Hostler is deserving of the [Jefferson Award] because she embodies so many Jeffersonian virtues,” Gazoni said. “She’s done so much to ... enrich the medical side of his Academical Village.”
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