The Alumni Association’s Jefferson Trust awarded more than $670,000 to 16 different University-based programs in a public ceremony held on the Lawn Friday. This marks the eighth straight year the trust has presented the grants.
Jefferson Trust chair Noreen Poulson presented the grants to a diverse pool of programs, from the student-run UVA Speaks to University President Teresa Sullivan’s Big Data-Intensive Research initiative.
The individual grants ranged from $2,500 to $100,000, and were awarded to “programs that enhance teaching, scholarship and research; programs that allow faculty and students to work closely together while engaging in hands-on learning; and programs that allow the University community to reach out to other communities – locally, nationally and globally,” according to a University press release.
The trust has distributed nearly $3.5 million dollars to almost 90 programs since its inaugural ceremony in 2006. “The projects have been diverse, [ranging] from helping fund small pavilion seminars in the Jeffersonian manner to supporting students as they improve the quality of drinking water in rural South Africa, [and] preserving Thomas Jefferson’s architectural drawings of the Lawn,” Poulson said.
Trustees personally reviewed 40 proposals applicants and selected those they anticipate will enrich both the local and global community.
Donors of the Jefferson Trust are currently building a permanent funding reservoir that will provide the ability to fund emerging initiatives, Poulson said.
Further down the road, the Trust hopes to expand the amount of money it can give in its annual April ceremony, Alumni Association representative Peter Grant said.
“Currently the Jefferson Trust has over $20 million in assets and we hope to raise another $10 million over the next five years, allowing the trust to annually give out at least $1 million in grants,” he said.
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