Category: University of Virginia

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David Gies, Academic Dean, Semester at Sea Fall, 2010

By Judy McLeod

On a warm, bright summer afternoon, 2009 at a shade-dappled café on Charlottesville’s Mall over a glass of smooth red wine, David, with Janna’s smiling concurrence, hired me as Studio Art Faculty for Semester At Sea, Fall 2010 voyage.

David’s bright smile and twinkling eyes as he stated “well, fine, let’s do it” brought me joy and changed my life momentously, forever. Several Semester at Sea voyages later, I am eternally grateful to David for enthusiastically initiating this wonderful phase of my life.

I have come to know that David’s inspiration and leadership as Semester at Sea Academic Dean is, actually, deep and pervasive in all parts of his life. David sets sights high whilst he inspires and challenges all folks around him with his ebullience and brilliance. It is always a grand pleasure to encounter David.  I am grateful and I am always honored and I remain inspired.  Thank you David

Judy McLeod

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David the Sailor

By Julian Conolly

David is not only a distinguished scholar and a dedicated teacher, he’s one helluva sailor too. (Even before the Semester at Sea days!)

Julian W. Connolly, Professor
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of Virginia

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David Gies, relentlessly encouraging and utterly devoted

By Christine Blackshaw Naberhaus

After my first year of graduate school at the University of Virginia, I had decided that I was not going to pursue a PhD. Unlike many of the students I knew in the doctoral program, and in my cohort completing the Masters degree, I had not found a subject that had lit a “fire in my belly” to make me want to keep studying and writing.

Consequently, I signed up for David Gies’s Enlightenment and Romanticism course because I thought it would best prepare me for the Comprehensive Exams. However, thanks to David, I found a period that not only inspired me to pursue a doctorate, but to continue studying Spanish literature. I was hooked.

Despite his polite, friendly demeanor, David was not an easy professor or dissertation director. He was demanding, attentive to detail, and honest in his critiques of my work. He was also relentlessly encouraging and utterly devoted to making me a better scholar and teacher. Whatever accomplishments I have made as a scholar, modest in comparison to his, I owe almost entirely to David.

Long after my time at UVA, David has continued to provide professional mentoring and support. When I present at conferences, he makes attending my sessions a priority. When I publish an article, he is one of the first to read it and send me unsolicited feedback.

David: I wish you the best of luck in your retirement, and I know that you will continue to inspire my envy with your jet-setting adventures!

Affectionately,

Christine Blackshaw Naberhaus

Associate Professor of Spanish Literature and Culture

Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures

Mount Saint Mary’s University

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Homage to Honorable David Gies, and, of course, to the lovely Janna

From David Breneman and Donna Plasket

Donna and I have cherished our friendship with David and Janna, which dates back to our arrival at UVA in 1995.  Although we were in different parts of the University, we became good friends rapidly, as David has a way of seeking people out and befriending them.

He helped Donna immensely in the early days of establishing the Bachelor in Interdisciplinary Studies program, helping to bridge the potential divide with the College.  He also became the champion of Semester at Sea, and invited us to serve as faculty on the Fall 2010 trip, an enormous pleasure and privilege.

We also traveled together for a week in our favorite city, Barcelona and environs, introducing us to the finest restaurants, sights, wines, museums, wines, nearby small towns, and wines.

His love of pictures of himself with celebrities has given us numerous opportunities to chide him for his strange compulsion.  In a short three-day visit to The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, FL, he managed to get himself in more pictures with celebrity speakers than we have in our more than three years here.

We have loved following the movement of David and Janna from one house to their now fabulous apartment, and their enthusiasm for the Paramount Theater.  We also appreciated his faculty leadership on behalf of Terry Sullivan when she was being attacked by the Board of Trustees.  And without David’s leadership of the Faculty Club, that organization would not have invested in such fine wines. (Does a theme begin to emerge?).  A man of wines, travel, the arts, and celebrities, not to mention his superb scholarship, which is beyond our ken, so will leave comments on that area to others.

We are delighted that the four of us will move toward retirement together so that we may continue to enjoy many lovely and lively times and wines together.

David and Donna                                                                                        January 2018

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Carpe Diem and Sapere Aude

By Margaret R. Ewalt

During my six years at UVA I noticed how equally as many female graduate students as male students looked to David Gies as a role model. After graduating, I have marveled how Mr. Gies continues to offer the gift of his time. Out in the profession he continues to mentor us, often facilitating scholarly opportunities at the most well-timed moments in a junior scholar’s career. Mr. Gies has also done a great job of modelling how to enjoy academic conferences to the fullest, including researching ahead and making dinner reservations at only the best local restaurants. I can honestly say that even though I don’t see him often, Mr. Gies’s lessons on embracing life have been sustaining me since 1998. None of us can predict when horrible moments strike, and the most important role Mr. Gies has modelled for me is facing personal tragedy with grace and maintaining faith that things will always eventually be ok. He’s helped me craft my own versions of carpe diem and sapere aude and I am forever grateful.

Margaret R. Ewalt
Ph.D. UVA 2001
Associate Professor of Spanish
Wake Forest University

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(Professor) David T. Gies: Perpetual Teacher and Loyal Friend

By Mark Del Mastro

As a new graduate student at the University of Virginia in August 1989, my first encounter with “Professor Gies” was at his fall, annual welcome-back picnic for faculty and graduate students. From that moment forward to the present, he has remained a generous teacher, counselor and friend. I have been fortunate to work with him in many contexts to include the AIH, Sigma Delta Pi, and the AATSP, and I will be forever grateful for his continual guidance and advice on a myriad of professional topics, and I will always admire his tenacious optimism. Knowing David, “retirement” will only be from his official post at UVA, but his feverish pace on both personal and professional levels will undoubtedly continue for many years to come. I wish him and Janna the best during this new chapter in their wonderful lives.
Abrazos,
Mark P. Del Mastro
Chair and Professor, Hispanic Studies
College of Charleston

July 6, 2017, Dr. David T. Gies at far right with fellow members of Sigma Delta Pi’s Orden de Don Quijote (left to right) Mark P. Del Mastro, Bill VanPatten, Domnita Dumitrescu and Benjamin Fraser during the Sigma Delta Pi reception at the AATSP conference in Chicago.

 

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Dear Mr. Gies

By Andrea Smith

January 10, 2018

Dear Mr. Gies,

As you now know, Betsy Lewis and Jeff Bersett sent an email to your friends and colleagues far and wide, requesting content for an homage to you and your career. After deliberating over what to write, about how to express what you have done for me and what you have meant to me as a scholar and a teacher and a human being, I find myself speechless. Humor me, then, while I resort to what other academics do in this case: I will quote myself.

I said it best in the single sentence addressed to you in the acknowledgments of my dissertation: “David Gies’ generosity with his time, expertise, and resources can be neither described nor repaid; all I can say is thank you.”

I said it more eloquently and specifically in the two letters below. Since then—the second letter is dated 2014—you have continued to encourage and mentor me. You have helped me with NEH grant proposals, you have written me even more recommendations, you have eulogized a beloved mentor (Donald Shaw) in a way that helped me grieve, you have publicized my scholarship when I didn’t have the confidence to do so myself. Truly, there is too much to say, and attempting to express it all seems ludicrous at this point.

Congratulations on a rich, distinguished, and meaningful career. And, one more time, thank you.

Con mucho cariño,

 

 

Andrea Smith davidgies nominations
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David Gies Changed My Life

By Dan Anglin

David and Janna,
Congratulations and thank you for everything. This video clip constitutes my best attempt to express my gratitude for everything you have done for me!

Remarks by Dan Anglin, Principal of the Prince Henry Group and 1992 graduate of UVA with a BA in Spanish, at a benefit dinner for the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese at Georgetown’s Four Seasons hotel, April 2014 .

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“Ovación de Pie”

By Stephen Cushman

Ovación de Pie

It’s tough to praise our knighted David
When in Spain his name’s engravèd
But doesn’t rhyme, except with aphid
Sort of. If only he would go by Dave,
Then these praises would behave
And more reviews of him could rave
In tune, happy that they gave it
Thumbs-up best on affidavit.
Or we could make a go with Davy,
Dean of our deep-water navy,
Shipboard Jefe and pure gravy
To work for at sea, calm or wavy.
But though we want our praises avid,
No such luck. We’re stuck with David.

Enough about him; let’s talk about Janna,
Who wears the pants, top banana
As is known in warm Havana
Same as frozen Bozeman, Montana.
Queen of Holdem in Texarkana,
Compared to her a Pollyanna
Is downright depressive. Sing hosanna,
Hallelujah, for the manna
She is to us and for the spice
She sprinkles on their zesty slice
Of Charlottesville, that paradise
For the newly retired. Mighty nice
May it continue and suffice
Abundantly our friends named Gies.

Stephen Cushman
January 2, 2018