The Case for Bavaro

American public education is at a crossroads. It faces the challenge of teaching an increasingly diverse population of students, many of whom lack skills and competencies that ensure success in school, and a workforce of teachers who are leaving the profession faster than they can be replaced. Recent studies show that only about 25 percent of American classrooms offer children the mix of instructional and social support known to produce high achievement. The University of Virginia Curry School of Education is at the forefront of efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning in our nation’s schools. It has become a powerful laboratory for the transformation of our schools and the systems and policies that govern them.

Maintaining Our Leadership

To better address the challenges facing public education in this country, the Curry School is planning a new home to accommodate its array of academic, research, and clinical programs. The $37.2 million facility, to be named Bavaro Hall in honor of the late Anthony D. “Wally” Bavaro, will be constructed adjacent to Ruffner Hall, Curry’s home since 1973.

The Curry School will not maintain its proud position as an educational leader across Virginia and the nation without significantly improving and expanding its facilities. Anyone who has spent much time in Ruffner Hall knows that it has been filled to capacity for years. Faculty and staff are scattered all over Charlottesville—some of them in expensive rental property—which inhibits the potential for truly groundbreaking work arising from faculty collaboration.

The work of the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, for example, has provided national leadership in the research and development of innovative teacher assessments. Yet, the Center’s research team is housed a mile away from Ruffner Hall and rarely are opportunities available to interact with the rest of the Curry teacher education faculty.

Improving Our Capacity for Innovative Research

At 65,000 square feet, the four-story Bavaro Hall will nearly double the space currently available to Curry. Bavaro will take shape in the space between Ruffner Hall and Emmet Street, where it will offer an immediate, visible, and dramatic improvement in the ability of our faculty members to interact and collaborate on projects. The building is designed with multiple open conversation areas just outside faculty offices, as well as conference rooms, a multipurpose space, and a courtyard garden – bringing a well-designed, attractive environment to Curry that will improve opportunities for interaction among our prominent faculty members and students.

Expanding Clinical Outreach to Children and Families

Bavaro will bring together four of the school’s renowned evaluation and treatment clinics for the first time, with a shared facilities such as a reception area and waiting room. Those clinics will include the Center for Clinical Psychology and the Speech-Language-Hearing Center, which will be located in Bavaro Hall, and the Personal and Career Development Center and the McGuffey Reading Center, which will be located nearby in newly renovated space in Ruffner Hall. The new clinical space will afford the type of collaboration and cross-disciplinary practice that will benefit the clinic’s clients and contribute to meaningful research activities. A child who is being seen for a reading problem at the McGuffey Reading Center, for example, may well need an assessment to determine the likelihood of a contributing attention deficit disorder, emotional disorder, language disability, or some other problem. In such a case, the centers could matrix their services to produce a top-quality evaluation that integrates multiple aspects of the child’s behavior.

Bavaro’s clinical area will also provide Curry faculty members something for which they have long been wishing: room in which to grow. The McGuffey Reading Center, for example, served 109 students during the 2005-06 academic year. Unfortunately, due to limited resources, the Center turned away as many students as it accepted. With the completion of Bavaro Hall the Center hopes to expand its intervention and diagnostic services.

Renovating Ruffner Hall

Bavaro Hall represents only a part of Curry’s ambitious capital expansion plans. Equally important is the renovation of Ruffner Hall, which will house state-of-the-art classrooms and the education library, along with faculty and graduate student offices and educational research centers. The University of Virginia is seeking funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia to support the much-needed renovation. The plan is to improve Ruffner’s current layout, opening up corridors that once stretched down the center of the building and were closed years ago to provide desperately needed space. Once the renovation is complete, the architect’s design will allow Ruffner and Bavaro to flow together in a seamless way.

Rising to the Challenge

The new Curry complex will be completed in stages. Groundbreaking for Bavaro Hall is expected in late 2007, with occupancy targeted for 2010. As faculty members begin moving over to Bavaro, renovation work will begin on Ruffner Hall. By 2011, both projects will be finished. Curry’s vision for the future offers its alumni and friends an unprecedented challenge: raising the funds to make Bavaro Hall a reality. In its prominent location along Emmet Street, Bavaro Hall will represent the image of the Curry School and serve its program needs for many years to come.

As of January 31, 2008, the Curry School of Education had received $36.7 million toward the $37.2 million cost of building Bavaro Hall. We are close to making this dream a reality, and we invite you to join us in supporting this new space that will allow us to do even more than we can imagine.