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Law School Dean Jeffries to step down

Cavalier band inspires ad campaign

Ultracold physics becoming a hot topic

WUVA celebrating 60 years on the air

Law Dean John Jeffries to Step Down Next YearSource: Law News

John C. Jeffries Jr. will step down as dean of the Law School in July 2008, concluding seven years of service in which he strengthened the school’s financial standing, improved the quality of the student body, and enhanced curricular and public service programs. Following a sabbatical, Jeffries will return to teach full time at Virginia.

"Serving as dean has been a great honor — and a great pleasure," Jeffries said. "I look forward to the coming year with complete enthusiasm. After that, I'll return to the classroom, which has always been my first love."

Jeffries, a civil rights and federal courts scholar, joined the Law School in 1975 and became dean in 2001. He has co-written casebooks on civil rights, federal courts, and criminal law, and has published a variety of articles in those fields. He also wrote a biography of Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.

"John Jeffries has been a remarkably innovative and insightful dean, one of the two or three best I have known over the course of a generation," said University President John T. Casteen III. "A skilled communicator and fund-raiser, he has built the Law School's endowment and enriched the school's reputation nationally and internationally. We are fortunate that Mr. Jeffries will continue his exemplary teaching career at the University after stepping down as dean, and grateful to him for many gestures of selfless support for students and faculty members within the Law School and elsewhere in the University."

Jeffries’s tenure as dean so far has been marked by major accomplishments. He negotiated and carried out an agreement with the University that allows the Law School greater flexibility to set tuition and manage its finances in exchange for relinquishing dwindling state funding. The last two annual giving campaigns — in which more than 50 percent of alumni made gifts to the Law School — have set school and national records for the level of alumni participation. Jeffries is currently leading a capital campaign, planned to conclude in 2010, in which 53 percent of the $150 million goal has already been raised.

"John Jeffries has been a delight to work with. He is the rare person who can promote the best of his school and the University at the same time — that’s 200 percent effort," said University Executive Vice President and Provost Arthur Garson Jr.

On the academic front, Jeffries spearheaded the Law & Business Program, a curricular innovation designed to give students the accounting and finance skills needed to hit the ground running in business law careers. Other curricular programs created during his tenure include those focusing on human rights, health law, and immigration law. In 2003 the dean oversaw the creation of the Center for the Study of Race and Law, which coordinates and promotes a variety of programs and courses on race and law.

In addition to improving the school’s finances and curriculum, Jeffries has also overseen marked improvement in the academic credentials of Virginia students. The applicant pool has grown by more than 35 percent since 2001, and the median LSAT scores and grade point averages have also risen significantly. Most important, the amount of financial aid provided to students has nearly tripled.

Jeffries has overseen a significant shift in personnel, hiring more than 25 full-time entry-level and tenured faculty members over the years while increasing the number of female and minority faculty. Several key administrative faculty members have been hired, including new deans for admissions, student affairs, and academic services.

Jeffries’ support for public service has fostered an increase in funding for students pursuing public interest careers. Under the dean’s guidance, the Law School has expanded the Virginia Loan Forgiveness Program, which allows graduates to pursue careers in public interest without the burden of law school debt. Several targeted pro bono programs — from the Hunton & Williams Pro Bono Partnership, which aids victims of domestic violence and asylum seekers, to the Child Health Advocacy Program, which recently received a $1 million endowment — have been established under the dean’s watch.

Former Law School Dean Richard Merrill, Daniel Caplin Professor of Law Emeritus, praised Jeffries for the curricular and financial strides he has made in serving the student body and strengthening the reputation of the school. "In addition to the new initiatives John conceived and undertook, he led by example," Merrill said. "A superlative teacher throughout this career, John continued to challenge and inspire students throughout his tenure as dean. And he continued to enjoy a national reputation as a scholar of the Supreme Court and the federal court system."

 "John Jeffries has been an extraordinary dean," said Elizabeth Magill, Joseph Weintraub-Bank of America Distinguished Professor of Law and Horace W. Goldsmith Research Professor. Magill is chair of the search committee for the dean’s replacement.

"We have all benefited from his singular combination of vision and judgment. For the last seven years, John has focused on achieving what is in the long-term interest of the Law School. He’s succeeded, and he will be a tough act to follow.

"We will search for a dean who is a first-rate scholar and teacher, as well as an imaginative and skillful leader," Magill said. "All members of the Law School community will be involved in the process."

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Cavalier band inspires ad campaignSource: UVaToday

See the YAMAHA ad featuring the Cavalier Marching Band

University of Virginia football fans are now familiar with the power and professionalism of the Cavalier Marching Band. With its high energy and dazzling performance routines, the band sets the stage for the football team and engages the fans.

At the center of that powerhouse is the 30-member drum line, which enters the field at the start of the game ahead of the other band members and even the team. "The drum line is the heart and heartbeat of the band. It sets the mood and tempo that all the other instruments follow," said William Pease, U.Va. director of bands.

Just three years after making its public debut at Scott Stadium, people are beginning to pick up on that beat. Recently, Yamaha Corporation of North America, one of the leading purveyors of band products, chose the Cavalier drum line to feature in print advertising targeted at Virginia high schools.

The band was started in 2003 with a gift from longtime University friends and benefactors Carl and Hunter Smith. Pease joined U.Va. at that time and built the band from scratch. He said he set out to create the best band possible "in the U.Va. tradition" and began fulfilling that goal by choosing top-of-the line instruments for all the musicians. He outfitted the entire band with equipment from Yamaha.

"I wanted to get the best for our students," Pease said.

The students have been Pease's focus from the start, and he encourages them to take ownership of the band. It is made up of about 230 members, comprised of brass, woodwind and marching percussion instrumentalists as well as color guard and twirlers, who perform at home football games. A smaller volunteer contingent performs at several nearby away games and other sports events around Grounds. About 60 members also hold leadership roles including section leaders, drill instructors, uniform staff and Web master.

"Mr. Pease is very, very adamant about promoting student leadership and having us really make it our own band," said fourth-year economics and bioethics student Benjamin Cooper, who has been with the band since his arrival at U.Va. and this year is the drum line captain. In that role, he has composed music and choreographed pieces for the drum line.

The amazing thing is that all the band members are non-music majors, Pease said. "The level of musicianship is tremendous. They push me to be more creative."

The students arrive in August, before classes begin, to attend a nine-day band camp. They practice at least twice weekly during the season and additional times during weeks when there is a home game. The group not only works together, they bond and become fast friends.

"The band's meant the world to me because before I came here I didn't know a single person," said fourth-year mathematics and philosophy major Jodi Meyers. "Before the school year even started, I had a solid group of friends and I'm still best friends with those same people to this very day."

Yamaha's interest in the band began in the spring, when a regional representative visited a rehearsal. Recognizing the Cavalier Marching Band's professionalism and musicianship, Pease said, led to the selection of the band to represent Yamaha in an ad campaign directed at high schools throughout the state.

"Yamaha is excited to have been chosen by the University of Virginia Cavalier Marching Band as their drum line of choice," Scott Slocum, district manager for Yamaha Corporation of America, said.

In turn, "we recognize the band’s influence throughout the state of Virginia and beyond, and have therefore added them to our national ad campaign," Slocum said. "This ad campaign proudly showcases the top college marching bands in Division I playing Yamaha [instruments] and is targeted directly at the high school markets they influence."

Second-year student Jason James, who is majoring in government with a minor in African-American studies, shares the pride of his fellow drum line members. "It's an amazing honor. … It's just a great way to represent the University on a large-scale band level," James said.

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Source: UVaToday

Heat is motion, and atoms are always in motion — except when they’re ultracold. Then they sit still … at least nearly.

But ultracold atoms don’t exist in nature. They have to be made that way through sophisticated manipulation techniques that use lasers to slow them down to a near stop. Cass Sackett, a U.Va. physicist, is one of a growing number of scientists hot at work in this coldest field of physics. He freezes atoms in their tracks, locking them in place at a billionth of a degree above absolute zero (about minus-459 degrees Fahrenheit), so he can make them do what he wants, within the laws of physics, of course. Understanding those laws, particularly quantum mechanics, is the realm in which he works.

Sackett uses light – lasers tuned to a particular shade of red – to manipulate atoms, suspending them in the void of space.

"Sometimes we call it optical molasses," he says. "We bombard an atom with finely tuned light, and we force it to slow down and then settle in place where we want it. Sort of like a marble rolling through a bowl of syrup."

This all occurs in a specially designed chamber that allows Sackett and his team to isolate the atoms and then control them using laser beams from nearly every direction. The atoms are nudged this way or that until, with just enough force from all directions, they stop and sit almost still.

The effects of the light are actually pretty weak, but they add up over time. "It’s like firing a BB at a bowling ball," Sackett says. "One BB will have hardly any effect on the ball. But hit it with enough BBs and the bowling ball will lose its momentum. That’s how we can control it."

But why would you want to control an atom?

We already do to a large degree, with good results, anytime we use electricity, computers, or any electronics involving the harnessing of energy. Such devices all manipulate atoms that naturally would prefer to do their own thing. And ultracold physics, if it can be made to become ultra-common, could result in faster computers, better navigation devices, better instruments for measuring everything from gravity to energy waves, and, ultimately, perhaps a better understanding of the workings of the universe.

But there are complications. When atoms get very cold, normal physics (such as the ideas of velocity and distance that describe a thrown baseball) no longer applies.

"Quantum mechanics takes over," Sackett says. "The idea of uncertainty becomes important."

By this he means that when an atom goes slow, it no longer occupies a single place in space, but instead can be many places all at once; here and there and everywhere, simultaneously. It’s as if a single baseball is both in your hand and a mile away at the same time.

"The whole concept sounds crazy and weird to physicists, too," Sackett says. "But even if it is hard to understand, maybe we can still use it."

Because if quantum mechanics is weird to the human mind, it is very real in nature for atoms that are ultracold. As mentioned, this doesn’t usually occur until humans make it happen. What physicists like Sackett are trying to attain through it is something they call quantum control. "For instance, we’d like to make chemical reactions occur that don’t normally occur," he says. "We’d like to make atoms behave exactly the way we want, even as they follow the rules that quantum mechanics enforces."

If atoms can be controlled, then many things become possible, including the dreamed of quantum computer, which would be more powerful than all the world’s supercomputers combined. This machine would be able to sort and assemble data at speeds unimaginable, because it would be able to process any and all data simultaneously, just as atoms in the ultracold state are simultaneously everywhere all at once.

Sackett’s own work involves measuring minute forces on atoms. If he can nudge his atoms just right, he may be able to create an instrument that could measure gravity with extreme sensitivity, possibly 100 times better than anything currently in existence. This could be of great use to the oil industry: because oil is lighter than most types of rock and sand, geologists use gravity-measuring devices to detect it. But because any given area will have numerous gravitational forces at work, there are limitations to the accuracy of the readings an instrument can attain. Sackett’s machine, if it can be made, would make detection far easier.

"We’re on the fringe of what’s possible," he says.

It’s crazy. And weird. On the fringes. And possible. Sackett remains hot on the ultracold trail.

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Source: WUVA

Mares Talk Show, circa 1973

In 1947, Louis Jordan dominated the R&B charts with finger-snapping songs like "Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens" and "Boogie Woogie Blue Plate."

To get the music of the day to students at Mr. Jefferson’s University, a group of novice broadcasters set up shop that fall in the basement of Madison Hall. Though the signal crackled with static, the moment marked the birth of WUVA Radio.

The songs and the technology have changed dramatically over 60 years, but WUVA has survived as one of only six student-owned and operated commercial radio stations in the country.

Now operating as 92.7 KISS FM, the station has created a distinct identity with its urban contemporary blend of hip-hop and R&B, its high-tech operation and its rich tradition of fostering good relations between the University and the community.

A celebration of WUVA’s six decades on the air is planned for Oct. 20. An open house will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. at the station’s studio at 1928 Arlington Blvd. (at the south end of Barracks Road Shopping Center).

Also, a banquet for WUVA alumni and friends is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Alumni Hall, 211 Emmet St. South (across from Memorial Gymnasium).

For details about the event, go to http://www.wuva-fm.com.

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© 2007 by the U.Va. Alumni Association