The University of Virginia will create 20 new Research Professorships in Democracy and Equity to examine underlying causes that fueled the violent demonstrations in Charlottesville on August 11 and 12, 2017.
The new professorships will be awarded on a rotating basis to eligible faculty members for two or three-year terms. They will foster research and teaching innovation around various topics related to democracy and equity. Each professorship with be funded by $1 million in donor commitments matched one-for-one by the university’s Strategic Investment Fund. They will be spread across UVA’s schools and under the administration of each school’s dean, with supervision by executive vice president and provost Tom Katsouleas.
“The white supremacist attacks on the city and the university last year starkly highlighted the urgency of the Democracy Initiative,” notes Ian Baucom, dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. “The new rotating professorships will not only help us design and introduce research-driven Democracy Labs and our new Democracy Forum classes for students, they will help us support the work of Arts & Sciences faculty across all departments and programs pursuing vital research on issues of democracy, race and equality.”
