As our community works to promote a more diverse and positive environment on Grounds, staff, faculty, and friends of the University are key partners in this endeavor. QVA is deeply grateful for the positive and supportive role played by so many individuals who reach out to provide encouragement, enlightenment, and are a beacon of understanding to LGBTQ and allied students.
In recognition of the important role of the faculty, staff, and others, QVA established its Outstanding Service Award in 2005 to recognize individuals contributing to a more positive and supportive culture at the University for LGBTQ students and significant improvement in the lives of the LGBTQ community on Grounds.
2023 Recipient
The QVA Board of Directors voted unanimously to award Francis Aaron Laushway with the Outstanding Service Award for his contributions to a more positive and supportive University of Virginia community. There are few people more deserving of this recognition than Aaron Laushway, who dedicated his life to promoting kindheartedness and dignity. His commitment to so many communities at UVA and elsewhere positively impacted many lives. His example is worth celebrating and remembering. To learn more about his life and legacy at UVA and beyond, please enjoy the beautiful tributes written by UVAToday and the Virginia Magazine.
2022 Recipient
Laurie Casteen, UVA MEd and PhD, Higher Education Administration, (she/her), 
spent 26 wonderful years working at UVA, holding roles in Orientation and New Student Programs, the Office of the Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer, and finally as Associate Dean in the Office of the Dean of Students. Laurie’s higher education work spanned a wide range of engagement, including: leadership of LGBTQ+/APISAA/Latinx center staff; academic affairs; threat assessment, safety and crisis response; first generation + low income student support; support for student veterans; and technology systems and project management. For the last decade of her career at UVA, Laurie led the non-clinical 24/7 crisis response team, served on the threat assessment team, and focused on student safety and wellness concerns.
2020 Recipient
Vicki Gist is an Associate Dean of Students with responsibility for Multicultural Student
Services and Fraternity and Sorority Life in the Office of the Dean of Students. In her capacity as Director of Multicultural Student Services since 2016, Vicki advises the Office of the Dean of Students on diversity and inclusion matters related to the student experience, and has responsibility for initiatives to support students from historically underrepresented and underserved groups, which includes oversight of the Multicultural Student Center, LGBTQ Center, Latinx Student Center, and the Interfaith Student Center. Vicki joined the UVA community in 2002 and previously served in student services roles at UVA Engineering and UVA Housing and Residence Life. Prior to joining UVA, she served as Assistant Director of Residential Education and Coordinator for Multicultural Education at Dartmouth College.
Born and raised in Union, South Carolina, she is a graduate of the University of South Carolina – Columbia, where she earned a B.S. in Mathematics and a M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration. Vicki recently completed a 3-year term on the National Advisory Council for the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE), as well as a two-year term as Vice-President of the Black Faculty and Staff Employee Resource Group at UVA. She resides in Charlottesville with her husband, Clinton, and their two children, Hope and Miles.
2019 Recipients
Valerie Gregory is an Associate Dean of Admission and the Director of the Outreach Office at The University of Virginia. She received a BS in Early Childhood Education from Hampton (Institute) University and M.Ed in Administration and Supervision from the University of Virginia. After being a teacher and principal for many years she came to the University of Virginia as an Assistant Dean of Multicultural Recruitment where later she became an Associate Dean of Admission and the Director of Outreach. This team was created in the office of admission to assist families from underrepresented and underserved groups with the college admission process. She has been in this position for nineteen years during which time she has conducted workshops and webinars on minority recruitment best practices, presented at regional, statewide and national conferences on topics such as college admission, essay writing, financing a college education, writing effective recommendations and diversity initiatives. She loves to bake, music and travel. She approaches her mission of making communities more diverse from one of her favorite quotes by Maya Angelou; “We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.”
Catherine Criswell Spear is the Associate Vice President (AVP) for the Office for Equal Opportunity & Civil Rights (EOCR) at the University of Virginia and has been with the University for four years. As the AVP for EOCR, she leads a 16-person team in support of the University’s prevention, education, and response efforts to ensure equal opportunity and protect the civil rights of all University community members, including students, faculty, staff, and visitors. EOCR is responsible for administering University policies that prohibit discrimination and harassment on a variety of protected characteristics, including gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, national origin/ethnicity, and disability, as well as prohibit retaliation. Prior to joining the University of Virginia, Ms. Spear was the first full-time dedicated Title IX Coordinator at Stanford University. Before Stanford, Ms Spear worked in the Cleveland office of the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for 19 years, including as Chief Attorney and then Director. OCR is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on sex, race, color, national origin, age, and disability in K-12 and higher education. Ms. Spear is an affiliated consultant for The NCHERM (National Center on Higher Education Risk Management) Group, LLC, as well as serves on advisory boards and/or committees for ATIXA (Association of Title IX Administrators), NACUA (National Association for College and University Attorneys), Futures Without Violence, and EVERFI (for Sexual Assault and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). She has a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Dayton and a Juris Doctorate from Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
2018 Recipient
Cordel Faulk has been assistant dean and chief admissions officer at the Law School since 2014. He joined Virginia Law as a director of admissions in 2009.
Before joining the Office of Admissions, he served as director of communications, media and research for the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. He also has worked as an adjunct professor and pre-law adviser in the Virginia Tech Honors College, and as an editor and columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He previously served as a member of the Board of Visitors of Virginia Tech, on the Virginia Historical Society Board of Trustees, and was a founding board member of the Virginia Equality Bar Association.
Faulk received his B.A. in political science from Virginia Tech, where he graduated summa cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In law school at Virginia he worked as a student admissions recruiter, was a member of the UVA Honor Committee and served on the Student Bar Association’s executive board.
After law school, Faulk clerked for Judge Henry C. Morgan Jr. of the Eastern District of Virginia, then became an associate at Baker Botts in Dallas, and later at Hunton & Williams in Washington, D.C. As an attorney he focused on intellectual property, trademark, copyright, antitrust and trade regulation issues.
2017 Recipient
Jennifer Markham Hulvey joined the Law School in October 2009. She has worked as a financial aid administrator since 1991, and came to the Law School from UVA’s Student Financial Services office, where she helped implement the University’s new student information system. In addition to her experience as a financial aid officer, Hulvey has also worked in the student loan industry, and spent five years as a higher education software consultant. She is a certified Myers Briggs Type Indicator administrator, and was the 2015 recipient of the Lambda Law Alliance’s Alvarez-Coughlin Award for commitment to diversity. She earned her B.S. in Agricultural Economics from Virginia Tech, and her M.Ed. from James Madison University.
2016 Recipient
Ian Baucom came to the University of Virginia after serving 17 years in Duke University’s Department of English as a professor and as the director of the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute. Since arriving at UVA in the summer of 2014, Dean Baucom has led a series of initiatives within the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
He is overseeing an ambitious hiring campaign that, in the midst of a generational turnover of esteemed faculty, aims to bring upwards of 200 new tenured and tenure-track faculty to the College. Baucom is emphasizing the importance of recruiting at the highest level of excellence and enhancing the faculty’s diversity to build on the College’s historical strengths and to ensure its future for generations of students to come.
Baucom is also guiding the College’s efforts to revise its undergraduate curriculum for the first time in four decades, starting with the new curriculum pilot that will launch in the 2017-18 academic year. In addition, he is working with the College’s leadership team to develop creative initiatives in global, digital and cross-disciplinary studies. At the same time, Baucom is working to advance the research mission and to further strengthen graduate programs, coordinating an examination of the Graduate School’s current state and future ambitions.
He earned his undergraduate degree in political science from Wake Forest University and holds a master’s degree in African studies and a doctorate in English, both from Yale University.
Baucom is the author of Out of Place: Englishness, Empire and the Locations of Identity, and Specters of the Atlantic: Finance Capital, Slavery, and the Philosophy of History. He is the co-editor of Shades of Black: Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain.
2015 Recipient
The 2015 recipient of the Outstanding Service Award was Robert D. Sweeney, Senior Vice President of University Advancement, for his unflinching leadership of a LGBTQ-welcoming and inclusive advancement organization which has driven successful fundraising initiatives for LGBTQ student scholarships, the LGBTQ Center and LGBTQ Studies in the Women, Gender and Sexuality program.
Bob Sweeney has spent virtually his entire 40 year career leading colleges and universities in maximizing their fundraising and public outreach. He has represented some of the finest public and private institutions during pivotal periods in their history where they leveraged strong leadership, significant new private resources and a compelling story to gain prominence. Every institution he has served has significantly increased its positioning in the various guides and rankings. These include SUNY Oswego, the University of Richmond, Loyola University of Maryland, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and, for the past 22 years, the University of Virginia. Mr. Sweeney has spent over 31 years at the Vice President level or above.
Central to Mr. Sweeney’s philosophy of building organizations is that for a team to come together, its members must share a common goal. Inspiring people through personality is a risky, exhausting endeavor. He believes that instilling in people the belief that accomplishing something far bigger than themselves—sparking the innovation of the next generation by providing an education to deserving students or funding the creation of new knowledge that supports cutting edge research–instills dignity and pride that motivates peak performance.
As Senior Vice President for University Advancement, Bob Sweeney has been the architect of two of the largest campaigns in the history of public higher education. In 2000, Mr. Sweeney led a successful campaign for $1.43 billion at UVa. At the time, it was the largest amount ever raised by a public university. In June of 2013, the University exceeded its $3 billion fundraising effort that, at the time of its announcement was the largest campaign goal ever attempted by a public or private university. It now ranks in the top ten campaign successes ever. During his tenure at UVa, Mr. Sweeney has orchestrated funding that exceeds $4.5 billion. Adding campaign successes at UNC Chapel Hill, Richmond and Loyola, Mr. Sweeney has been a catalyst in raising almost $5 billion.
For 12 years, Mr. Sweeney also led the public affairs program at the University which included media relations, social media, marketing, web design and services, audio visual services and community relations. He worked closely with University President Teresa Sullivan to create and launch a new University Communications division that will leverage the dramatic changes in the communications environment.
Bob Sweeney has served as a member of the Board of Trustees of St. Joseph Hospital (Towson MD), his alma mater Niagara University (where he received an honorary doctorate in 1998) and several University of Virginia related foundations including the Virginia Health Foundation, the Virginia Athletics Foundation, and the University of Virginia Foundation.
He makes his home on the Grounds of the University of Virginia. He resides on Thomas Jefferson’s historic Lawn in Pavilion VI. He has two sons, Matthew of Beverly Hills, CA and Paul, of Hilton Head, SC.
2014 Recipient
William Anderson Jr., Ph.D., has been at the University of Virginia since 1981. He received a B.S. degree in psychology from Virginia Tech in 1970 and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from SUNY at Stony Brook in 1974. He completed post-doctoral studies in pediatric psychology at UNC-Chapel Hill. Dr. Anderson had been an assistant professor of psychology at UNC-Chapel Hill and subsequently became associate professor in the U.Va. Curry School programs in clinical psychology. In 1985 he became director of training in the U.Va. Counseling Center, and served in that position until 1996 when the Counseling Center was merged with Student Mental Health to form CAPS. In his current role as a licensed staff psychologist Dr. Anderson conducts individual and group therapy, supervises clinicians in training, and provides outreach to the wider University community. His theoretical orientation derives from humanistic and cognitive behavioral theory and research. Much of his clinical work and psycho-educational outreach address multicultural issues, sexuality, and spirituality concerns. Dr. Anderson is a Fellow at Hereford College. He is currently a member of the American Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, The Association of Black Psychologists, and the American Psychological Association. He is chair of the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, and is also active in several other national and international peace and justice organizations. He is a tenor in two Charlottesville choral ensembles: The Virginia Consort, and Zephyrus.
Previous Award Winners
2013
Patricia M. Lampkin
|
2012
Edward Strickler
|
2011
Julian Bond
|
2010
Ellen J. Bass
|
2009
Joy Pugh
|
2008
Sharon Davie
|
2007
Michael J. Smith
|
2006
V. Shamim Sisson
|
2005
John A. Herring
|
2004
Wayne Cozart
|
2003
Judy Pointer
|
You must be logged in to post a comment.