From the Desk of Dean Fairchild: Year in Review and Looking Ahead

As 2025 comes to a close, Dean Fairchild reflects on a year of growth, community building, and forward momentum at UVA | Northern Virginia. Drawing inspiration from the honeybee, including the hives located right here on our campus, he shares a look back at the milestones that shaped the past year and a preview of what’s ahead.

What do bees do during the winter?

You might have noticed fewer insects out and about, and among the absence, pollinators like bees. Once temperatures fall below about 55 degrees, they go into the hive and cluster together, vibrating their wings to stay warm. They also ration the honey they’ve stored for the year and await the return of Spring.

Why am I writing about bees? Well, there are a few analogues with what’s been afoot at UVA | Northern Virginia over the last year, and if there’s an opportunity to talk about bees, why not? In case you didn’t know, I am an Apidae fanboy, and we have two hives at our Fairfax facility.

New hive. Bees sometimes move to a new hive – you may have seen a swarm of bees on a tree or heard about a swarm being removed by beekeeper from a public location or home. Well, we moved into a new facility this year just off Gallows Road in Fairfax, Virginia (on the Inova Center for Personalized Health complex). To acknowledge the grand opening, the Governor Youngkin and UVA President Ryan joined us to mark the occasion. Forgive the analogy, but we had swarm of over 600 attend that day. The 55,000 square foot space has classrooms, state-of-the-art educational technology, a green wall, and UVA spirit that connects us back to grounds. If you haven’t visited us, please do soon. We will also be launching Off Grounds, an opportunity for UVA alums to use the space for co-working in the new year.

Strengthening the workers. Bees are eusocial insects. That is, they live within a system that relies on distributed roles and networks of sharing support. As many of you know, the Northern Virginia area has experienced considerable economic uncertainty over the past 12 months. To that end, we launched a targeted set of initiatives and networking opportunities to support career transitions, including a career and job fair with nearly 70 employers and more than 800 attendees in collaboration with universities across Virginia, as well as a programs fair where 10 UVA partner schools met with individuals considering a UVA degree as their next step.

Getting together to celebrate. As the seasons change, honeybees enter a flurry of hive activity, preparing for the colder months ahead. We’ve been busy as well, bringing the UVA community together with events and gatherings for our more than 200 local UVA employees. We also have been welcoming many of our 50,000 DMV-based UVA alumni and members of the local community to visit our Fairfax campus. This spring, we’ll continue building that momentum with the launch of the brand-new alumni co-working initiative that will invite even more alumni to engage with us at UVA Northern Virginia.

Waggle Dancing. One of the ways that honeybees communicate where to find stocks of pollen is through a series of movements others learn to read for geolocation, called a ‘Waggle Dance.’ At UVA | Northern Virginia, we didn’t dance this year, but we did share knowledge through a series of curated learning engagements, such as our Connect Conversation series. This series of local talks in our Fairfax campus has included topics ranging from how math influences the performance of elite athletes to national security with the Dean of the CIA, and most recently, a partnership with the UVA Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service on federal downsizing and its regional impact in the Northern Virginia region. This series will continue in the coming year with other UVA faculty and practicing experts. If you’ve an interesting idea for a future Connect Conversation, please let us know.

Preparing for the next generation. During the frosty winter, we are thinking about what’s ahead and foremost in our thoughts is finding a way to keep the next generation progressing. Of course, education is central to what we do, and we have a special interest in engaging with K-12 learners in the area. Three years ago, we launched the Inspire program, which offers summer learning opportunities that students won’t typically find in their local school (forensic science, business, digital marketing, writing, data science etc.). We had the great benefit of engaging with186 learners and their families in 2025, and we are planning for even more learners and programs in 2026 (Inspire 2026 applications are now open). We are also excited to be adding our first-ever credit-bearing course this summer, a French language offering developed in partnership with UVA Summer & Special Academic Programs, where students can earn six college credits and fast-track their path to French fluency.

Strengthening the ecosystem. One of the great benefits of our location in the DMV is our ability to interact and engage with the needs of local learners outside of the degree-related work that universities offer. To that end, we’ve been offering a growing suite of continuing education opportunities, many in conjunction with our schools. For example, we’ve held Drone and Law Enforcement summits in partnership with our School of Continuing and Professional Studies. We’ve also offered a steady stream of educational programs for current learners like our Department of Defense Master Planning Institute, which offers academic and hands-on training to aid in creating best in class campuses for government agencies. We’ve offered training for those interested in increasing their sales prowess, like our Customer Experience Leadership Academy, and have a new Certificate in Facilitation you will see in the coming months. If strengthening your skills is of interest and you’ve not looked at our non-degree set of executive and employee educational offering, please take a look.

Clustering. When its cold outside, the bees cluster together. I like to imagine that they are talking, buzzing about what’s to come. That’s what we’ve been doing on our team, buzzing about what’s to come. If you’d like to help us think things through, send a note to us at northern@virginia.edu.