“I decided when I got tenure that I should do something with that position to benefit the community,” Gordon said. “I’m a music history professor and I write a lot of about gender and race in history, and when my kids started school at Burnley-Moran there was an expectation that parents should be volunteers. So I volunteered. I saw that there was so much disparity based on rase that I wanted to do something.”

She did more than something. In 2011, she founded the UVa Arts Mentors Program utilizing undergraduates to provide experiences in drama, music and other arts for local elementary school students they otherwise may not get.

“She was starting the [Arts Mentors] program because she knew not all students in Charlottesville were able to have the opportunities her kids were having and she wanted to level the playing field a bit,” Caldwell recalled. “What started 10 years ago as a small fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants program is now a well-established Madison House volunteer opportunity.”

Read the rest of this Daily Progress story here.