On April 12 and 13, the University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello will present their highest honors, the 2022 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medals in Architecture, Citizen Leadership, and Law.
This year’s awardees are:
- Architecture: Kenneth Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where he has taught since 1972. Frampton is considered one of the world’s foremost experts in modern architecture.
- Citizen Leadership: Sherrie Rollins Westin, president of Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind “Sesame Street.” Westin leads efforts to serve vulnerable children through mass media and targeted initiatives in the United States and around the world.
- Law: Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a graduate of Stanford, Oxford and Harvard Law School. In 1994, he was appointed a Supreme Court justice by President Bill Clinton. He will retire from the court at the end of the 2021-22 term.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medals recognize the exemplary contributions of recipients to the endeavors in which Jefferson – the author of the Declaration of Independence, the third U.S. president and the founder of the University of Virginia – excelled and held in high regard.
“I’m thrilled that our University’s highest honor, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medals, will be awarded this year to a Supreme Court justice, an extraordinarily influential educator and a renowned historian of modern architecture,” UVA president Jim Ryan said. “These are deserving recipients, and I look forward to honoring their successes.”
The medals are presented annually by the president of the University and the president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the independent, nonprofit organization that owns and operates Jefferson’s home, Monticello.
The celebrations mark the 279th anniversary of Jefferson’s birth.
