On April 13, the University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson
Foundation at Monticello will present their highest honors, the 2017 Thomas
Jefferson Foundation Medals
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| Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal |
in Law, Citizen Leadership, Global Innovation and
Architecture, respectively, to:
- · Law: Loretta Lynch, the first African-American female attorney general in U.S. history, known for her impressive career prosecuting cases involving narcotics, violent crimes, public corruption and civil rights.
- · Citizen Leadership: Alice Waters, founder of the Edible Schoolyard Project, chef, author, food activist, founder and owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California, who has championed local, sustainable agriculture for more than four decades.
- · Global Innovation: N.R. Narayana Murthy, Indian entrepreneur and visionary leader who founded and grew Infosys into an information technology powerhouse through the design and implementation of the global delivery model for outsourcing services.
- · Architecture: Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, Irish founders, and directors of Grafton Architects, renowned for their creative and visionary academic and educational buildings.
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Narayana Murthy is the 2017 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medalist in Global Innovation. (Photo courtesy of Narayana Murthy) |
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medals recognize the exemplary
contributions of recipients to the endeavors in which Jefferson – the author
of the Declaration of Independence, the third U.S. president and the founder of
the University of Virginia – excelled and held in high regard.
“This year’s medal recipient represents a remarkably broad range of
human endeavor. The common denominator is that all of them have ascended to
significantly high levels of achievement in their respective fields,” said UVA
President Teresa Sullivan.
The medals are the highest external honors bestowed by the University,
which grants no honorary degrees. The awards are presented annually on
Jefferson’s birthday, April 13, by the president of the University and the
president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the independent, non-profit
organization that owns and operates his home, Monticello. April 13 is known
locally as Founders Day, celebrating Jefferson and his founding of UVA in
Charlottesville in 1819.
“This year’s medallists’ embody Jefferson’s vision of global citizenship
and his relentless dedication to human progress and innovation,” said Leslie
Greene Bowman, president, and CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
Bowman and Sullivan will present the medals, struck for the occasion, to
the recipients at a luncheon in the Dome Room of the Jefferson-designed
Rotunda at UVA. The medallists’ in Architecture, Law, Citizen Leadership and
Global Innovation will each give a free public lecture at UVA, and will be honoured
at a formal dinner at Monticello.
The complete schedule of events for Founder’s Day can be found here.
The Citizen
Leadership medallist, Alice Waters, will also be the featured keynote speaker
at Monticello’s commemoration of Jefferson’s 274th birthday on April 13 at 10 a.m. on the West Lawn of Monticello.
The celebration is free and open to the public. The ceremony will be live
streamed online here.
This year’s medallists’ join a distinguished roster of past winners that
includes architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, I.M. Pei, Frank Gehry, Toyo Ito
and Zaha Hadid; seven former and current U.S. Supreme Court justices; former
U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher; Marian Wright Edelman, founder
of the Children’s Defense Fund; Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America;
Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve; former Secretary
of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano; and several former and current U.S.
senators and representatives, including John Lewis, John Warner, George
Mitchell, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Sam Nunn and James H. Webb Jr.
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