Two faculty members were awarded the Thomas Jefferson Award for their sustained and distinguished service and scholarship at the University during Fall Convocation Friday.
President Teresa A. Sullivan presented Marva Barnett, French professor and director of the Teaching Resource Center, and English Prof. R. Jahan Ramazani with the award, which is the highest honor the University presents to its faculty.
Two Thomas Jefferson Awards are presented each year, with the first recognizing service to the University and the second recognizing excellence in scholarship.
"It honors our faculty who have made a significant contribution to the University," said Education Prof. Carolyn Callahan, a member of the Thomas Jefferson Awards Committee. "[Honorees] have had a sustained career here and they have done things during that career that bring distinction to the University."
The first award, honoring service to the University, was presented to Barnett, who is the 61st recipient of the award.
"In 1983 I came to the University of Virginia as an assistant professor in the French department and for seven years I designed and led a week-long teaching development workshop for the graduate TAs in French," Barnett said.
The Teaching Resource Center connects faculty and graduate teaching assistants across academic disciplines and across Grounds to develop skills in teaching.
"The tradition of attention to teaching and learning at U.Va. was always clear, and I always knew that faculty and the graduate TAs would appreciate a way to share their teaching skills and a place where they could connect across academic disciplines," Barnett said. "So I knew if I built the center they would come."
The second award, honoring excellence in scholarship, was presented to Ramazani, who is now the 62nd recipient.
Ramazani has devoted his scholastic career to literature and poetry. He has written four books, and his most recent, "A Transnational Poetics," was published in 2009 and received the 2011 Harry Levin Prize from the American Comparative Literature Association, which emphasizes literary history or criticism.
According to a press release, one of his English department colleagues wrote, "The centerpieces of Jahan's tenure as chair were his leadership in revamping the way we fund students in our Ph.D. program, the careful and even-handed way he dealt with the need to cut the department's budget as the financial crisis took its toll on the University's finances, and the excellent hiring he was able to do against the strong economic headwinds."
Ramazani and his father, R.K. Ramazani, professor emeritus of government and foreign affairs, are the first father and son to both receive the Thomas Jefferson Award.
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