UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Sharon Hostler, Emerita McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics

“I do remember standing up to John Casteen in the Rotunda, with my straw hat on, saying the tenure clock and the biological clock were not one. Ended up being on the front page of the paper.

“Well, we’d rabble roused sufficiently so that the faculty senate was having a session in the Dome room of the Rotunda. I was leaving on vacation the next day and I was not maintaining my best cavalier behavior. I stood up and said that the biological clock and the tenure clock were not on the same page, and that it was barbaric what we were doing to our junior women to make a decision about motherhood or academic success. Something like that, maybe more dramatic than that.

“And I remember President Casteen looking at me and thinking, Who is this woman and get her out!”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Sharon Hostler, Emerita McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics

“After my husband died in 1974, there was no question in my mind that I would leave the university.

“I would go back North, I would not be part of this Southern culture that still felt very alien to this Yankee. And I looked at positions. One of them was at the University of Minnesota and it was twenty below zero when I interviewed. I thought, Oh, getting the kids ready, getting the car warm, shoveling the walk. Well, I’m not gonna go north.

“I said, Well, I think I’ve made my home at the University of Virginia. Now that I’m retired, I can come back and be an undergraduate student and I can do all those things. I can sit in on classes and I’m just going to be in hog heaven.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Sharon Hostler, Emerita McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics

“After my husband died in 1974, there was no question in my mind that I would leave the university.

“I would go back North, I would not be part of this Southern culture that still felt very alien to this Yankee. And I looked at positions. One of them was at the University of Minnesota and it was twenty below zero when I interviewed. I thought, Oh, getting the kids ready, getting the car warm, shoveling the walk. Well, I’m not gonna go north.

“I said, Well, I think I’ve made my home at the University of Virginia. Now that I’m retired, I can come back and be an undergraduate student and I can do all those things. I can sit in on classes and I’m just going to be in hog heaven.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Sharon Hostler, Emerita McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics

“I mean, I love this university because we can walk from school to school. And because I’ve been able to work with faculty from the School of Education at Kluge Children’s Rehab.

“You know, those early days shaped me. There I was at thirty years old as a medical director of this children youth project, which was a War on Poverty program from Lyndon Johnson. It was an amazing experience to learn about this community and we ended up with clinics at the Earlysville Fire Department as well as the Corner, where the Women’s Center is now.

“It was a group of people who had come together and had been together for two years, really trained in community action. Registering people for food stamps and WIC and looking at low income housing.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Sharon Hostler, Emerita McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics

“I mean, I love this university because we can walk from school to school. And because I’ve been able to work with faculty from the School of Education at Kluge Children’s Rehab.

“You know, those early days shaped me. There I was at thirty years old as a medical director of this children youth project, which was a War on Poverty program from Lyndon Johnson. It was an amazing experience to learn about this community and we ended up with clinics at the Earlysville Fire Department as well as the Corner, where the Women’s Center is now.

“It was a group of people who had come together and had been together for two years, really trained in community action. Registering people for food stamps and WIC and looking at low income housing.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Sharon Hostler, Emerita McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics

“I think being the McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics was an amazing honor. McLemore Birdsong, his memory is everything it means to be a gracious Southern gentleman.

“Now I was rebelling against that. But Dr. Mac, as we called him, would say, Did they teach you this in the North? Did they teach you about phenobarbin, dilantin in the North for seizures? Yes, Dr. Mac, they did that.

“So when I was appointed to his chair, he had died, people say, God, Dr. Mac would be rolling over in his grave if he knew there was a woman in his chair. And I would say, Oh no, Dr. Mac is probably rolling over in his grave but it’s because it’s a Yankee in his chair, not because it’s a woman in his chair.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Sharon Hostler, Emerita McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics

“I think being the McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics was an amazing honor. McLemore Birdsong, his memory is everything it means to be a gracious Southern gentleman.

“Now I was rebelling against that. But Dr. Mac, as we called him, would say, Did they teach you this in the North? Did they teach you about phenobarbin, dilantin in the North for seizures? Yes, Dr. Mac, they did that.

“So when I was appointed to his chair, he had died, people say, God, Dr. Mac would be rolling over in his grave if he knew there was a woman in his chair. And I would say, Oh no, Dr. Mac is probably rolling over in his grave but it’s because it’s a Yankee in his chair, not because it’s a woman in his chair.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Sharon Hostler, Emerita McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics

“So when I went to Kluge to be the medical director I knew a lot about budgeting. By that time I had learned one of my major lessons now: always have access to the budget.

“I am a feminist of the first order, but I really thought at this point in time when I was now at the University of Virginia and I was an assistant professor on the tenure track, that these things wouldn’t happen. But I had access to the budget in this children and youth project, which was a million and some dollars. And I found out that the dentist made more money than I did by about twenty-five percent.

“So that was one of the first things, I got a five thousand dollar raise, from $15,000 to $20,000, just by having looked at the budget. It didn’t take any kind of competency at all, except being able to read numbers. So from then on I never gave up the budget, whatever I did.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Sharon Hostler, Emerita McLemore Birdsong Professor of Pediatrics

“So when I went to Kluge to be the medical director I knew a lot about budgeting. By that time I had learned one of my major lessons now: always have access to the budget.

“I am a feminist of the first order, but I really thought at this point in time when I was now at the University of Virginia and I was an assistant professor on the tenure track, that these things wouldn’t happen. But I had access to the budget in this children and youth project, which was a million and some dollars. And I found out that the dentist made more money than I did by about twenty-five percent.

“So that was one of the first things, I got a five thousand dollar raise, from $15,000 to $20,000, just by having looked at the budget. It didn’t take any kind of competency at all, except being able to read numbers. So from then on I never gave up the budget, whatever I did.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

William Bennett, Associate Professor of Sculpture

“So, in a lot of ways, sculpture making is a communal activity, because there are a lot of things you can’t do with two hands and you need somebody else.

“I had a student, a good student, who missed class on Monday. She was sick. I said, Oh, I have an idea. When she comes back to class on Wednesday, I will take advantage of the sculpture community to catch her up. I have another good student, brand new, this is her first semester, but she is a good student. I said, Oh, I’m going to line up these two girls together.

“So I come to class and these two had already gotten together. I didn’t even have to say anything. They read my mind. They read the communal mind. And they had gotten together and they were helping each other out. That warms my heart.”