The University announced the creation of the John A. Blackburn Endowed Scholarship Saturday in honor of the retiring dean of admissions.
Friends, colleagues and supporters have donated $1.5 million to the scholarship, which will be added to the AccessUVa endowment and will support the University’s financial aid program, said Gordon Burris senior assistant to the president.
Blackburn — who was unavailable for comment — will be retiring at the end of the semester after working at the University for almost 30 years, Burris noted.
“Dean Blackburn has been the dean of admissions since 1985, and he has been very committed to the AccessUVa program,” Burris said, citing Blackburn’s dedication to the University’s admissions office and his efforts in admitting thousands of students to the University.
“Jack is really a legend in the field of admissions,” Associate Dean of Admissions Greg Roberts said. “He has really shaped admission policies at the University as well as across the country.”
Blackburn first began working for the University when he was hired in 1979 as the associate dean of admissions by current University President John T. Casteen, III, who was serving as dean of admissions at the time, Roberts said. Since becoming the dean of admissions, Blackburn has become known as a “trailblazer” in terms of admissions, equity and access to the University, Roberts said.
Blackburn’s scholarship has been set up as part of AccessUVa so the funds will go to assist students with financial needs, Financial Aid Director Yvonne Hubbard said. AccessUVa, which seeks to meet the financial needs of low- and middle-income students who are academically qualified to attend the University, Hubbard said, “is very dear to [Blackburn’s] heart.”
Blackburn always has wanted to ensure students admitted to the University would be able to enroll, she explained.
“That money — all of the donations — will be put into the [AccessUVa] endowment,” she said, adding that the interest from the endowment will be used to continue the scholarship each year.
Currently, Hubbard said it is hard to predict how many incoming students will benefit from the scholarship, but as a part of the financial aid awards, “we’d like to give a little bit to a lot of students,” she added.
Despite the status of the economy, Hubbard also said she hoped people would support the scholarship and “take the opportunity to honor Jack Blackburn.”
The $1.5 million set aside for the endowed scholarship was collected during the course of a few months, Burris said, starting in fall 2008. “This is only what has been raised so far,” he added, noting that many people are “hoping that the final amount will be much more.”
“The more money we can get into this scholarship, the better it will be for the students,” Hubbard added.
Outside of his work with AccessUVa, Blackburn has also been known for his ability to reach out to prospective students in many ways, Roberts added. Programs such as the guaranteed admissions system established with Virginia community colleges and the joint venture between the University and Ivy League schools, such as Harvard and Princeton, to carry out admissions information presentations across the country, were all initiated in the admissions office during Blackburn’s time as dean, Roberts said.
While working to make it possible for exceptionally talented low-income students to attend the University, Roberts added that Blackburn has focused on designing an application process that makes it easier for students of all income levels to apply to the University.
“Thomas Jefferson imagined our University as an attraction for students from everywhere, and he admired talent and ambition above any kind of entitlement or privilege,” Casteen wrote in an e-mail. “Jack Blackburn made the University what Thomas Jefferson intended it to be.”
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