University of Virginia Library

REPORT BY THE PRESIDENT

The President announced the appointment of three of the five chairs of the proposed commissions charged with the planning initiatives ordered by the Board. The three chairs and their commissions are Mr. Robert Chapel, Fine Arts; Ms. Rebecca Kneedler, Public Service and Outreach; and Ms. Anita Jones, Science and Technologies. The chairs of the remaining two commissions should be named in the next several weeks. The membership of the commissions will include faculty, students and alumni. The commissions will announce their work plans after the first meeting of the University Planning Council in December.

The President reported on the feasibility studies in progress on the proposal to establish a university in Qatar. Teams of faculty, he said, are at work on establishing curricula and other aspects of the proposal are being studied. There have been discussions with leaders of the Virginia coal industry on conversion technology, there being similarities in the extraction of natural gas in Qatar and in the Virginia coalfields. A team from the University will visit Doha at the end of October and the beginning of November, and a group of consultants are studying various financial aspects of the Qatari proposal. The Sheikha, which is to say the wife of the Ruler of Qatar, will visit the University for a few days in mid-December.

All of these studies, the President reported, are on schedule and the final report should be ready for the Board shortly after the first of January, as promised.

Finally, the President noted the structural deficiencies to University Hall discovered in August and said the Administration would seek guidance from the Board about the possibility of planning a replacement to the building.