
Colette Sheehy, UVA’s senior vice president for operations and state government relations, is the eighth member of the University community to receive a Silver Hope Award from the National MS Society. (Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications)
Sheehy is a former chair and current member of the Emily Couric Leadership Forum, which recognizes women leaders and provides scholarships to local young women to empower the next generation of women leaders. She is also a member of the board of directors for the Charlottesville Area Chamber of Commerce, and previously served on the board for the Central Virginia Partnership for Economic Development, Virginia Retirement System, Virginia Discovery Museum and Leadership Charlottesville Alumni Association.
Colleagues describe Sheehy, one of UVA’s first female vice presidents, as a role model to women across Virginia who have risen through the ranks to leadership positions. They call her a mentor who has assisted other professionals for decades through leadership development programs at UVA and across the commonwealth.
P&T Director Honored With Lifetime Achievement Award
Rebecca White, who directs UVA’s Department of Parking & Transportation, recently received the International Parking & Mobility Institute’s 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Rebecca White, whose career at UVA Parking and Transportation started as a student bus driver in 1982, plans to retire as director later this spring. (Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications)
The institute said the award recognizes those who generously give their time, expertise and passion to advance the work of the parking and mobility industry. In particular, it hailed White for being a “champion” for the Certified Administrator of Public Parking program, which provides a professional certification. It recognizes training and expertise in areas including parking design, finance, revenue control and auditing, parking enforcement, and management.
The credential program was developed by the institute in partnership with UVA.
“You certainly have been a champion for the CAPP program and helping build it into the most respected certification in our industry,” the organization said to White in its award notification. “Over the years we could always count on your volunteering for an assortment of projects, and we knew that having your involvement would benefit our community at large.”
White, a UVA alumna, joined Parking & Transportation as a student bus driver in 1982. She has served as director since 2001, a role that includes responsibility for all permit, transit and facilities operations. She has served on state and national parking and transportation organization boards and has provided consulting services to peer higher education parking and transportation operations.
White plans to retire from the University later this spring.
“Becca White is truly deserving of this honor,” Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer J.J. Wagner Davis said. “We are grateful for her leadership in Parking & Transportation and wholeheartedly agree that she deserves a lifetime achievement award.”
Professor’s Scholarship Among 10 Best Corporate Law Articles of the Year
School of Law professor Cathy Hwang’s paper showing that most empirical corporate governance scholarship is based on bad data has been named one of the top 10 corporate and securities law articles of 2022.
In a poll conducted for the journal Corporate Practice Commentator, Hwang’s fellow academics voted the paper, “Cleaning Corporate Governance,” as one of the top 10 among more than 400 entries.
The paper, published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, is co-written with law professors Jens Frankenreiter of Washington University in St. Louis, Yaron Nili of the University of Wisconsin and Eric L. Talley of Columbia University. With data gathered by dozens of law students and scholars, the paper makes available its collection of three decades’ worth of corporate charters for thousands of public companies.
By examining the new dataset, the team found that scholars’ reliance on a preexisting set of corporate governance data had been misplaced.