Who runs this

Leadership

The Council is run by volunteers. Every person below is a UVA graduate who decided that watching from a distance was not enough.

Executive Committee

Joel Gardner

President

College 1970, Law 1973

Joel Gardner was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as an undergraduate and returned to UVA for his law degree, where he edited the Law Review. He practised with a Wall Street firm before spending thirty years in corporate finance. He has served on four University boards, was a founding member of the Rotunda Society Board, and sat on the University’s Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry. He is the author of From Rebel Yell to Revolution, an account of the four years he spent at UVA as an undergraduate, and has written on the University for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. He helped create The Jefferson Council and served on its first Executive Committee.

Chip Vaughan

Secretary

College 1969

Chip Vaughan played soccer at UVA and served in the US Army and at the Virginia State Corporation Commission before attending law school. He practised in Richmond until retiring in 2019. He organised the Jefferson Scholars presence in Richmond and was an active member of the Alumni Association’s Richmond chapter.

Andy McLean

Treasurer

College 1972

A Charlottesville native, Andy McLean spent forty-five years in Richmond banking. He founded the Bank of Goochland and served as its president until its acquisition by Essex Bank, and most recently was market president for First Bank/Richmond until his retirement in 2023.

Committee Chairs

David Greenberg

Honor Committee

Engineering 1966, Law 1969

Ann Lunsford Hunter McLean, PhD

Student Liaison Committee, co-chair

Arts 1991, PhD Architectural History 1998

Walter Smith

Research Committee

College 1979, Darden 1984, Law 1984

Charles “Buddy” Weber

Strategic Planning Committee

College 1968, Law 1998

Buddy Weber flew twenty-seven years as a Navy combat fighter pilot and closed his military career as professor of naval science at UVA from 1993 to 1995.

Board of Advisors

Alumni who advise the Council on strategy, research, and outreach

Whitney Athayde
James A. Bacon
Peter Bryan
Walter Bundy
Virginia Cenedella
David Greenberg
Mark Krebs
Andy McLean
Ann Lunsford Hunter McLean
Kerry Moynihan
Sarah Saunders
Shel Thomas
Walter Smith
Chip Vaughan
Charles “Buddy” Weber

Founders and standing advisors

Bert Ellis

Co-founder, President Emeritus

Thomas M. Neale