Welcome to this inaugural edition of the quarterly QVA newsletter. As the outgoing Chair of QVA, I am thrilled to share with you some exciting news and updates about our community — just in time to hand off future publication of this newsletter to our new leadership team. Each quarter, we’ll highlight upcoming events, funding opportunities, and news from the vibrant community being built by students, faculty, staff, and our global network of LGBTQ+ UVA alumni.
Name Change
At last year’s Fall Weekend, the Board of Directors unveiled our new name. On October 1, 2022, the Serpentine Society became QVA – The University of Virginia’s Queer Alumni Network. Our new name reflects our commitment to creating a safe and welcoming environment for all members of the LGBTQ+ and allied community at UVA. Interestingly, QVA was the originally proposed name for the group in 1998. With this name we renew our foundational commitment to strengthening UVA’s LGBTQ+ community through education, philanthropy, and bridge-building.
Thank you to Matt Paco, Blake Calhoun, Jasmine Hall Ratliff, Gordon Willis, Lance Guthrie, Julie Weed, Felix Nguyen-Dalton, Kelli Palmer, Bob Witeck, the entire QVA Board of Directors and Advisory Council, and so many others. You have thoughtfully devoted your time and expertise to how our name, our mission, and our operations can reflect our work to build a more equitable and forward-looking UVA community.
Fall Weekend
Last year’s Fall weekend was held at the beginning of October — not even a major hurricane could stop us from celebrating the accomplishments of Jeffrey Reider (Col ’74), Laurie Casteen (Educ ’06), Kate Redding (Col ’03), and dozens of scholarship recipients and award winners.
We also had an opportunity to give overdue in-person credit to Vickie Gist, who received the Outstanding Service award during an all-virtual Fall Weekend in 2020. After blowing through multiple rain site options, we still filled all 125 seats at our awards gala and were at capacity for our other events all weekend long. Thank you to everyone who attended and contributed their time and resources. We hope you enjoy viewing the photos from the weekend. Please credit @finiphotos for any sharing.
Please join us for another wonderful Fall Weekend on October 6-8, 2023. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation has generously agreed to honor last year’s contract for Montalto this year, where our promise of a celebration under the stars will finally come true. See you on the mountaintop.
Leadership Change
After 8 years at the helm, I am excited to announce that Lance Guthrie will officially take over as Board Chair on April 1, 2023. Lance has been a dedicated member of the Board of Directors for several years — serving as Scholarships Chair and Board Secretary, and being an active member of several other committees. I am confident the organization is in excellent and indefatigable hands with Lance and his team, and I can’t wait to see our progress reach new heights under Lance’s leadership. I will remain on as Events Chair. As we return to building community in person more often, please look for regional events near you as well as Reunions and Fall Weekend events that take place each year on Grounds.
8 Years of Progress
As I pass the torch, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has walked on this journey to make UVA the best possible place for all LGBTQ+ students, alumni, faculty, and staff to study, work, and thrive. I’ve admired your passion, your dedication, your vision, and your support. I want to draw your attention to just a few highlights that so many of you have made possible over the past 8 years:
- Scholarships: QVA has awarded nearly 300 scholarships since Fall 2016. When I joined the Board, QVA awarded two scholarships made possible by tireless LGBTQ champions and funders — the John A. Herring Scholarship for Social Awareness, and the Jeffrey L. Reider & Charles F. Otis Endowed Prize. The subsequent contributions of Peter Page, Joseph Quintano, Robert Coggin, and many other donors have made our Scholarship program what it is today. More thanks are owed to our Scholarships committee (led by Felix Nguyen-Dalton), our network of allies in admissions and student affairs offices around Grounds, and the partnership of people like Jeffrey Reider and Chuck Otis, Michael Clarke, Jennifer Hulvey, Valerie Gregory, and so many others.
- Student Funding: We expanded our student funding to include initiatives like a Professional Development Fund, a Travel Grant Fund, and a Student Hardship Fund. Special thanks to Blake Calhoun and Alex Winkowski for helping us best serve students. QVA also now provides the funding for the “Love Is” campaign at UVA and has provided substantial student group grants and speaker grants. We continue to provide funding to the LGBTQ Center through the generous partnership of The Susan A. and Donald P. Babson Charitable Foundation.
Advisory Council: With the help of Julie Weed, Gordon Willis, Kate Redding, and others, we have built an Advisory Council filled with subject matter experts and advocates for equality who provide a crucial voice when designing QVA initiatives. - Professorships: Thanks to incredible advocates and partners like Charlotte Patterson, Michael Clarke, J.B. Mayo, Jonathan Bram and Susan Sarnoff Bram, and many others, UVA has established posts like the LGBTQ Studies Professorship and the Julian Bond Professorship for Civil Rights and Social Justice. These professorships improve the academic experience for UVA students and increase UVA’s role in producing high-quality academic thought in these areas.
Donation Request
With all the progress we’ve made, there’s still more work to be done to meet the critical demand we now face for scholarship funding. Word has gotten out about our expanding scholarship and grant opportunities and more than 10% of UVA’s incoming class identified themselves as LGBTQ+ in 2022. We want to fund every qualified LGBTQ+ student who applies. For the past several years, the Board has provided increasing ad-hoc funding from our Operating endowment to balance the scholarship portfolio. Our Operating endowment also funds many other programs we administer for students and alumni.
We won’t be able to keep up with demand without your help. Please consider making a contribution to the QVA Operating Endowment or the Wavelength Scholarship Endowment using the donate button below. If you have any questions about which fund to give to, or how to best support scholarships, please contact me or Lance.
I want to thank everyone once again for their support and dedication to building a better world and a better University of Virginia community. Together we have achieved so much, and I am excited to see where we will go from here. Stay tuned for more updates and news from our group in the next edition of our newsletter.
Very truly yours,
Brendan Maupin Wynn
brendan@queervirginia.org
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