“Seek Yahweh while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have compassion on him. Turn to our Elohim, for He will abundantly pardon.”

Isaiah 55: 6-7

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Reminiscing About the University of Virginia: Part 2, UVA Women

This SnyderTalk editorial is about some of the women students at UVA with whom I worked and got to know. I will refer to them by their first names only.

Sonja

Several months ago, a former UVA student of mine, Sonja, contacted me and thanked me for helping her land her first job in venture capital. Later, that industry came to be known as private equity.

While Sonja was a student, I received a call from an alumnus of our school, Richard. He was in the venture capital industry in Boston. His partners wanted to hire someone to help them identify high-tech and software startups in the Boston area, so they could consider investing in them in the early phases of development.

When Richard told me what he was looking for, I immediately thought of Sonja. She worked in our school’s computer lab, and she was taking my entrepreneurship course. Her major was marketing, but it was obvious to me that she had a great finance mind. She also had amazing computer skills. That was something I didn’t have.

Sonja helped me learn to use computers. It probably didn’t mean that much to her, but it was a great help to me at a critical time. I was busy writing books, articles, and cases, and I used my computer as a tool. Sonja taught me how to use my computer effectively.

Sonja went on to become one of the women who changed Silicon Valley. A book was written about her. It’s titled Alpha Girls: The Women who Took on Silicon Valley’s Male Culture and Made the Deals of a Lifetime. Sonja is amazing, and she has accomplished some amazing things. I am very proud of her.

I taught at UVA for 25 years. While I was there, more than 50% of our students were women, and our women students were our best students. I knew that they would encounter obstacles that our men students would not have to confront.

That’s reality. I didn’t create the problem, but I decided to do what I could to help solve it. I never told anyone what I was up to. I just did it. When Sonja contacted me to thank me, I felt like I had accomplished something, too.

The McIntire Business Institute

My dean, Bill Shenkir, asked me to direct the McIntire Business Institute (MBI). It was a 6-week program for non-business graduates at UVA that we ran during the summer. It started immediately after graduation and ended at the end of June. At that time, the MBI wasn’t living up to its potential. It was a great idea, but very few UVA students knew about it. I needed to get the word out, and I decided to work through UVA sororities.

This was my logic: If women enroll in the MBI, men will follow. That’s exactly what happened. UVA women liked the idea and enrolled in the program. Men did follow, and our MBI classes were about 50% men and 50% women. The MBI became a great success.

Each fall and spring semester, I visited 5 UVA sororities early in the semester to promote the MBI. I visited the same 5 sororities every year, so I got to know the presidents of those sororities very well. I invited each of the presidents to take my leadership course. All of them accepted my invitation. They got to know me, and I got to know them. I didn’t know many of their members, but the presidents knew me and enough about the MBI to become great spokespeople for the program.

I selected someone from one of those 5 sororities to work with me running the MBI. During the academic year, I did the work, and I prepped them so they could run the program while it was in session. All of the people I selected did great work. They literally ran the program during the summer. I was there for them if they needed me, but for the most part, I was just another faculty member teaching in the program. That’s the way I wanted it to be, and they never let me down.

Kristin

Kristin was president of one of those sororities, and she was a student in our school. I selected Kristin to work with me on the MBI one year. While she was running the MBI, she was also involved in revamping her sorority’s security system. The Corner area at UVA where students live had become a dangerous place by that time. Break-ins were not uncommon, and sorority girls needed protection. I became Kristin’s sounding board while she thought through security for her sorority house.

Lauren

A couple of years later, Lauren was elected president of Kristin’s sorority. In the wee hours of the morning before dawn, I was at home working on a book that I was writing, and I got an email from Lauren. She explained that her sorority’s national chapter had told them that they had to have a faculty advisor. They had never had a faculty advisor, and they didn’t want one. She called a meeting of her sorority sisters to talk about their options, and after many hours of discussion, they decided that they wanted me to be their faculty advisor.

I said, “Lauren, don’t you think it would be better if you had a woman advisor?”

She said, “We talked about that, but we decided on you.”

I asked Lauren what being a faculty advisor would entail. She said that she would bring issues to me from time to time, but they would still run the house. She also said that I could drop in for dinner any time I wanted. I assured Lauren that I would not “drop in for dinner” but that I would join them for dinner if I was invited.

Turns out I was that sorority’s faculty advisor until I retired. As a result, I got to know many of the members well. Several of them took my classes at UVA, and many others enrolled in the MBI.

An Unnamed UVA Student

As I said, the Corner area at UVA became a dangerous place while I was at the university. When I joined the faculty in 1979, it was not dangerous. Students roamed the area freely day and night. Over time, the Corner area became a magnate for perverts, partly because all of the sororities were close by. Women were their primary targets.

One fall semester just before classes started, a UVA coed was raped in the Corner area. It attracted a lot of media attention. I heard about it, but that’s all. Charlottesville and university police had failed to do their jobs. As a result, our young women students were being victimized.

On the first day of my leadership class that semester, one of my students came by to see me after class. I won’t divulge her name. She was a member of one of my 5 sororities. She knew me, because she had seen me many times when I visited her sorority. I didn’t know her personally, but she felt comfortable talking to me. She asked me if I had heard about the rape on the Corner. I told her that I had.

With tears in her eyes, she said, “Mr. Snyder, that was me. I’m having trouble right now focusing my attention. I’ll do the best I can.”

It felt like she had stabbed me in the heart and twisted the knife. It really hurt. I have 2 daughters. Of course, what happened to her would resonate with me. I couldn’t imagine what she was going through. I told her that I would help her any way I could and that she should not worry about class.

My classes were very interactive. I didn’t put any pressure on her to speak up in class or draw unnecessary attention to her. From time to time, she would drop by my office to talk. I was a sort of father figure to her. She felt comfortable venting with me without feeling self-conscious. Just listening to her was a harrowing experience for me. It was much worse for her. I still feel pain when I think about it. By the time the semester ended, she was participating in class discussions regularly. She made amazing progress.

Karen

Karen was a participant in the MBI. She was also a member of one of my 5 sororities. She knew me, but I didn’t know her. She was brilliant. Watching Karen’s mind work was a sight to behold.

Several weeks after the MBI ended, Karen called me and said, “Mr. Snyder, my father was murdered, and I need to get out of my parents’ house. My mother is driving me crazy.”

Karen’s father was a surgeon. He was on his way to the hospital to perform surgery, and he stopped at a convenience store on the way to fill up with gas. It was a drive-by shooting, just a random act of violence with no rhyme or reason. It tore Karen’s mother up. Karen tried to help her mother, but there wasn’t much she could do.

Karen said, “Do you have something I can work on?”

I said, “I do, but I can’t pay you anything.”

“That’s not a problem,” she said. “I just need something to do. I can move to Charlottesville for a while and work with you if that’s okay.”

I said, “That’s fine.”

Karen did move to Charlottesville and work with me. I couldn’t pay her, but the project on which we worked was a book project. I made her a co-author of the book.

I got to know Karen well while we worked together. During that time, I involved her in some of my consulting work, too. She was great. When the book project ended, I helped Karen land a banking job. Later, I helped her transition to the legal profession. Today, Karen is a well-known and highly-regarded lawyer.

While we worked on the book project, I took Karen to Smith Mountain Lake with my family, so she could relax and unwind. Katie and I had a house on the lake that we used on weekends. Karen got to know Katie, Melanie, and Rebekah as well. She became a part of our family. We still stay in touch. Eventually, Rebekah became a UVA student and president of Karen’s sorority.

I have many more stories to tell, but I’ll stop there. The women students at UVA while I was there were amazing. I am glad that I could play a small part in some of their lives. They helped me grow as a human being. I will be forever thankful to them for that.

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“I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me — just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father — and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd. The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”

John 10: 14-18

See “His Name is Yahweh”.