Echols Scholars Alumni,
I’m excited to share our first newsletter with you.
When I speak with alumni, I often hear how interested they are in learning more about what’s happening with the Echols Scholars Program and how they can support its mission. We have so much going on, and so many opportunities to connect, that we can’t possibly share them all with you in one newsletter, but we look forward to communicating with you a couple times each year.
What has stood out to me most in my time as director is the vibrant community that I have encountered. Whether it’s the common life shared by first-year students living in the “Scholars Dorm” (currently Balz-Dobie), or the vibrant discussions in our Common Read book groups, or the presentations at our end-of-year Echols Research Symposium, our students embody our motto of “Engaging Curiosity for Life.”
Echols Scholars continue to enjoy exemptions from UVA’s general education requirements and to receive priority registration, so that they can pursue a curriculum of their own design. But, importantly, Scholars also have the opportunity to take leadership roles in the program, including serving on the Echols Council, working as one of our outreach interns, or sharing their gifts and abilities with us in less formal ways.
I would encourage you to spend a few minutes catching up on the latest Echols news. I am especially enthusiastic about our new Echols Mentoring Echols initiative, which you can read about below and join if you’re interested. Let me also give special thanks to Ann Brown (Col ’74, Law ’77), our alumni coordinator, for helping us get this initiative off the grounds.
If you’d ever like to know more about the program, I am always delighted to connect with our alumni, so please reach out to me.
Regards,
Karl Shuve
Director, Echols Scholars Program
Associate Professor of Religious Studies
“Echols Mentoring Echols” Announcement
We are happy to announce a new program for Echols alumni who would like to mentor current Echols scholars. Our alumni have had distinguished careers in a wide range of professions/areas and represent a great resource for current Echols students. If you’ve ever thought, “Hey, I have had a great career and I’d like to share it with current Echols scholars,” then Echols mentoring is for you.
As part of the effort, we’re using the UVA Alumni Association’s Wahoo Connect platform to create an online community of Echols alumni and students. Please visit the website to create or update your profile. Please make sure to check the box for Echols Scholar in the “Student Activities: Academic Programs, Awards & Honor Societies” section. New users will need to complete an extra but simple verification step.
When more alumni sign up, we will begin reaching out to current Echols Scholars. The app offers functionality for students to search and find mentors, and for mentors to find them.
We are very excited to be offering matching of Echols alumni and students through Wahoo Connect and hope you all will sign up!
If you need technical assistance with Wahoo Connect, reach out to wahoo-connect@virginia.edu or the Alumni Interest Groups team at aig@virginia.edu.
For further questions about Echols Mentoring Echols, contact Jeanine Braithwaite (Col ’82) at braithwaite@virginia.edu. Jeanine is a current lecturer at the UVA Batten School and chairs the Echols mentoring subcommittee.
Spotlight on Visiting Speakers
One of the benefits of being an Echols Scholar is having the opportunity to connect with innovators, experts, and gifted practitioners in many different fields. This year, the Echols Scholars Program hosted two visiting speakers.
In September, Professor Louis Newman, Dean of Academic Advising and Vice-Provost for Undergraduate Education at Stanford University, joined us for three days to share his research on student success. Over 100 Scholars came out for a dinner presentation, “Critical Thinking: What You Really Came to College to Learn,” each receiving a copy of his book, Thinking Critically in College: The Essential Handbook for Student Success.
In October, UVA alumna and award-winning writer Taylor Harris (Col ’05) hosted a creative writing workshop for the Echols program. Ms. Harris led students through a series of exercises and then shared her own experiences in the publishing industry. All attendees received copies of her 2022 memoir, This Boy We Made: A Memoir of Motherhood, Genetics, and Facing the Unknown, which has won multiple literary awards and was a Washington Post Best Nonfiction Book of the Year.
Echols Council Update
Did you know that the Echols Scholars Program has a student council?
Founded in the 1990s, Echols Council has spent the past thirty years working closely with Echols leadership to develop programming for UVA’s roughly 1,000 current scholars, and this year is no different. I’m proud to report the council has been hard at work since August.
In the fall semester, we managed to put on 10 social, academic, and professional events, send out 13 weekly newsletters, and pair 114 students with on-Grounds mentors. Some highlights include a successful back-to-school social at the Colonnade Club, gatherings at local coffeehouses and a holiday cookie decorating event during finals.
The spring semester began with an enlightening fireside chat with the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Christa Acampora, in her home. Council held a coffee for mentor and mentee pairs, organized a Valentine’s Day mixer with the Engineering School’s Rodman Scholars (where we all wrote more than 60 letters for patients at Martha Jefferson Hospital), and we put out a midterms snack cart in Balz-Dobie dorm in February. March featured an “escape room” event designed by an Echols Scholar, hosted in the dorm. We wrapped the academic year with an ice cream social hosted by Ben & Jerry’s.
We’re looking forward to making more memories as a community next year. For more information about the Council, please visit the Echols Council website.
My best,
Alexandra Pentimonti (Com ’25)
President, Echols Council ’23-24
Alumni Events
In an effort to connect recent Echols alumni with current Scholars, our Outreach Interns program organized a lunch social as part of October’s Young Alumni Reunions weekend . Millie Pandya (Col ’25), led the project. Scholars and alumni gathered in Pavilion III over a light charcuterie spread from Mona Lisa Pasta. As always, we extended the invitation to all members of the Echols community in the area and were happy to see alumni of all ages. The event gave us the opportunity to celebrate our community’s post-graduate achievements while facilitating connections both new and old. We hope to continue hosting socials every YAR weekend (with you at the next one)!
We also have two upcoming receptions that we are excited to share with you.
- You are warmly invited to join our Echols Receptions at Reunions 2024:
- Friday, May 31, from 3:30-5 p.m. in Pavilion I, Lower Garden
- Friday, June 7, from 3:30-5 p.m. in Pavilion I, Lower Garden
An Echols Scholar on the History of Co-Education at UVA
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the graduation of the Class of 1974—the first fully co-educational undergraduate class at UVA. Echols alumna Giovanna De Oliveira (Col ’21) produced a four-episode podcast as her Fourth Year final project that takes a deep dive into the history of this class and the culture of 1970’s. We encourage you to have a listen!
Do you have something that you’d like us to share with the Echols Alumni community? Fill out this form to tell us all about your accomplishments!
Support Echols Scholars
The Echols Scholars Program relies on the generosity of alumni to continue offering a full slate of events and opportunities. If you would like to make a gift, you can do so via our secure online giving form.
Support the Echols Scholars Program
If you have friends who are Echols alumni who are not receiving our emails, please forward them this email so that they can join our listserv to receive communications, event information, and more! You can also follow along with the Echols program by following our Facebook page.