Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He had previously served as the second vice president of the United States between 1797 and 1801. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national levels.
Monticello was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally 5,000 acres (20 km2), with Jefferson using the labor of enslaved African people for extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, later shifting from tobacco cultivation to wheat in response to changing markets. Due to its architectural and historic significance, the property has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987, Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The current nickel, a United States coin, features a depiction of Monticello on its reverse side.
The University of Virginia is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded in 1819 by United States Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson. It is the flagship university of Virginia and home to Jefferson's Academical Village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UVA is known for its historic foundations, student-run honor code and secret societies.
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and community outreach. Considered the first learned society in the United States, it has played an important role in American cultural and intellectual life for over 270 years.
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university has waived all of the usual requirements, such as matriculation, attendance, course credits, a dissertation, and the passing of comprehensive examinations. It is also known by the Latin phrases honoris causa or ad honorem. The degree is typically a doctorate or, less commonly, a master's degree, and may be awarded to someone who has no prior connection with the academic institution or no previous postsecondary education. An example of identifying a recipient of this award is as follows: Doctorate in Business Administration.
The Rotunda is a building located on The Lawn on the original grounds of the University of Virginia. It was designed by Thomas Jefferson to represent the "authority of nature and power of reason" and was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. Construction began in 1822 and was completed shortly after Jefferson's death in 1826. The grounds of the new university were unique in that they surrounded a library housed in the Rotunda rather than a church, as was common at other universities in the English-speaking world. The Rotunda is seen as a lasting symbol of Jefferson's belief in the separation of church and education, as well as his lifelong dedication to both education and architecture. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and is part of the landmark University of Virginia Historic District, designated in 1971.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture recognizes individuals for distinguished contributions to the field of architecture. The Medal in Architecture has been jointly awarded each year by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello and the University of Virginia School of Architecture since 1966. Along with the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Citizen Leadership, and the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Global Innovation, the awards are the highest external honors bestowed by the University, which grants no honorary degrees.
Paul Edward Farmer is an American medical anthropologist and physician. Farmer holds an MD and PhD from Harvard University, where he is the Kolokotrones University Professor and the chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is co-founder and chief strategist of Partners In Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization that since 1987 has provided direct health care services and undertaken research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. He is professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
The University of Virginia College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences is the largest of the University of Virginia's ten schools. Consisting of both a graduate and an undergraduate program, the College comprises the liberal arts and humanities section of the University. Edward Ayers was the dean of the College through July 1, 2007, when he was named the ninth President of the University of Richmond; Karen L. Ryan was named Interim Dean after his departure, and Meredith Jung-En Woo became dean on June 1, 2008. The College offers more than 45 undergraduate majors and more than 24 graduate programs. On July 1, 2014, Ian Baucom began his tenure as the Buckner W. Clay Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences after serving 17 years in Duke University's Department of English. Dean Baucom was a professor of English and directed the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke.
Jeffersonian architecture is an American form of Neo-Classicism and/or Neo-Palladianism embodied in the architectural designs of U.S. President and polymath Thomas Jefferson, after whom it is named. These include his home (Monticello), his retreat ,the university he founded, and his designs for the homes of friends and political allies. Over a dozen private homes bearing his personal stamp still stand today. Jefferson's style was popular in the early American period at about the same time that the more mainstream Greek Revival architecture was also coming into vogue (1790s–1830s) with his assistance.
Mortimer Maxwell Caplin was an American lawyer and educator, and the founding member of Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered.
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects are a husband-and-wife architectural firm founded in 1986, based in New York. Tod and Billie began working together in 1977. Their studio focuses on work for institutions including museums, schools, and nonprofit organizations.
Merrill Daniel Peterson was a history professor at the University of Virginia and the editor of the prestigious Library of America edition of the selected writings of Thomas Jefferson. Peterson wrote several books on Jefferson, including The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, and Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation. Other works include Lincoln in American Memory, John Brown: The Legend Revisited (2002), and most recently Starving Armenians: America and the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1930 and After.
Thomas Jefferson's involvement with and support of education is best known through his founding of the University of Virginia, which he established in 1819 as a secular institution after he left the presidency of the United States. Jefferson believed that libraries and books were so integral to individual and institutional education that he designed the university around its library.
Annette Gordon-Reed is an American historian and law professor. She is currently the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a professor of history in the university's Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She is formerly the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard University and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Gordon-Reed is noted for changing scholarship on Thomas Jefferson regarding his relationship with Sally Hemings and her children.
The Jefferson Scholars Foundation provides full-ride scholarships to select undergraduate and graduate students at The University of Virginia (U.Va). It has been named one of the two leading scholarship programs in the country. Named after Thomas Jefferson, the founder of U.Va, JSF aims to "serve the University of Virginia by identifying, attracting, and nurturing individuals of extraordinary intellectual range and depth who possess the highest concomitant qualities of leadership, scholarship, and citizenship." In addition to funding tuition and fees, the scholarship program provides undergraduates with extensive programming including an introductory outdoor weekend, international travel, a summer leadership and citizenship institute, internships and an extensive speaker series.
A.E. Dick Howard is a legal scholar who has devoted his professional life to understanding the Supreme Court, the American Constitution, and constitutions of the world. He is the White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Washingtonian magazine has named Professor Howard one of the most respected educators in the nation, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Library of Virginia included Professor Howard on their list of the "greatest Virginians" of the 20th century. In 2013, the University of Virginia recognized Howard with its Thomas Jefferson Award—the highest honor given to faculty members at the University.
Richard J. Bonnie is the Harrison Foundation Professor of Law and Medicine, Professor of Public Policy, Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Science, and Director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia and the University of Virginia School of Law. He teaches and writes about criminal law, bioethics, and public policies relating to mental health, substance abuse, aging and public health.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, originally known as the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, is a private, nonprofit 501(c)3 corporation founded in 1923 to purchase and maintain Monticello, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. The Foundation's initial focus was on architectural preservation, with the goal of restoring Monticello as close to its original appearance as possible. It has since grown to include other historic and cultural pursuits and programs such as its Annual Independence Day Celebration and Naturalization Ceremony. It also publishes and provides a center for scholarship on Jefferson and his era.
