{"id":157,"date":"2015-05-19T13:44:55","date_gmt":"2015-05-19T17:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aig.alumni.virginia.edu\/bolivar\/?page_id=157"},"modified":"2025-02-11T16:17:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T21:17:44","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/aig.uvaalumni.org\/bolivar\/about\/history\/","title":{"rendered":"History"},"content":{"rendered":"

La Bol\u00edvar Network (BN) was founded\u00a0<\/strong>in 1997 by Alexandra Alvarez Minoff (CLAS \u201900) and was inspired by was inspired by The Ridley Scholarship Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alexandra attended \u2018Leadership 2000\u2019 where she studied the feasibility of creating such a network.\u00a0 She worked closely with Alumni Hall, where the idea was spearheaded to go through yearbooks to spot out Latino alumni since University record-keeping did not have this data recorded.\u00a0 The first Board Meeting was held that October 1997, Alexandra Minoff was a second-year student, but had the vision of an upperclassmen.\u00a0 Alexandra also served as president of La Sociedad Hispanica, where Gina Marie Flores (CLAS \u201900) served as Vice President and Claudia Knez (CLAS \u201900) served as Secretary.\u00a0 Alexandra is the visionary of the BN Network though La Sociedad Hispanica, but would not have been able to make it successful without the dedication and ownership Gina and Claudia display through La Bolivar Network\u2019s early years.<\/p>\n

Gina Marie Flores went onto serve as Chairman of Board for many of La Bol\u00edvar Network\u2019s early years.\u00a0 Alexandra credits the efforts of Gina and Hernando Herrera, former Chairman (CLAS \u201989) for being instrumental in building her vision into reality.<\/p>\n

The Bolivar Network\u2019s name was inspired by the Bol\u00edvar Family.\u00a0 Similar to when UVA named the Spanish House in honor of alumnus Fernando Bol\u00edvar, nephew and adopted son of South American Hero, Simon Bol\u00edvar.<\/p>\n

Fernando Bol\u00edvar was born in 1810 in Caracas, Venezuela\u2019s capital and was one of the first students at UVA, coming here to study in 1827 because he and his uncle were both admirers of Jefferson and his ideas about freedom and democracy.\u00a0 Simon Bol\u00edvar, “the Liberator,” helped create independent democratic nations in South America. Simon assisted Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia to establish their independence from Spain.\u00a0 When Fernando’s father was killed in the fighting, Simon Bol\u00edvar, who had no children of his own, adopted his nephew and sent him to the United States to be educated.<\/p>\n

The UVA Board resolution cites Fernando Bol\u00edvar as “an early exemplar of the strong and historic ties between the University and Latino America” and the goal of La Bol\u00edvar Network is to grow and strengthen this bond by enriching students and alumni experiences, careers and lives.<\/p>\n

Fernando Bol\u00edvar came to the United States in 1822 to attend Germantown Academy in Germantown, PA and after five years considered going to West Point but decided on the newly opened University of Virginia because he admired Jefferson. \u00a0Jefferson died the summer before the young Bol\u00edvar came to register.\u00a0 Simon Bol\u00edvar sent a letter to the University faculty detailing how he wanted Fernando to be educated. A typed copy of the letter, along with other material relating to Bol\u00edvar’s days here, are in Alderman’s Library’s manuscript collection.\u00a0 Among other aims, Fernando’s education was to include modern languages, “not neglecting his own,” his uncle wrote.<\/p>\n

Portraits of Fernando and Simon Bol\u00edvar, gifts to the University from the Venezuelan government in the 1940s, can be found in the Casa Bol\u00edvar at 1408 Jefferson Park Ave. Alderman collection is a copy of Fernando Bolivar’s memoir, “Recuerdos y Reminiscencias,” published under the pseudonym “Rivolba” (an anagram of Bol\u00edvar) in Paris in 1873.\u00a0 In it he describes his days at UVA:\u00a0 “The buildings were exceedingly beautiful and very well arranged. . . On the ‘Lawn’ or principal plaza, which occupied the top of a low ridge, there were about 12 pavilions. . . There was no wall around the university grounds to keep the students in . . .”\u00a0 He notes that his professors were “very eminent men secured by Jefferson for the express purpose of teaching at his university.”<\/p>\n

In a recent novel, “The General in His Labyrinth,” Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, writes a historically based novel of Simon Bol\u00edvar.\u00a0 In the novel, it notes Fernando Bol\u00edvar had been a student in Charlottesville at the University founded by Thomas Jefferson.<\/p>\n

For more information about the history and relationship between Thomas Jefferson and the Bol\u00edvar family, check out this talk “Thomas Jefferson, Sim\u00f3n and Fernando Bol\u00edvar”<\/span><\/a> researched and given by Gustavo Pell<\/span>\u00f3<\/span>n, Professor of Spanish and <\/span>Comparative Literature, University of Virginia on Satu<\/span>r<\/span>d<\/span>ay Octo<\/span>b<\/span>er <\/span>7, 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

For more history about the Bol\u00edvar Network and the Hispanic\/Latinx community at UVA please visit UVA’S Hispanic and Latinx Oral History website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chairs of the Bol\u00edvar Network<\/strong><\/h2>\n
    \n
  • 1997-1998: Alexandra Minoff \u201900<\/li>\n
  • 1989-1999: Pedro Medina \u201982<\/li>\n
  • 1999-2001: Alexandra Arriaga \u201987<\/li>\n
  • 2001-2003: Gina Flores \u201900, 2001-2003<\/li>\n
  • 2003-2007: Carlos Soles \u201995<\/li>\n
  • 2007-2008: Faviola Rubio \u201905<\/li>\n
  • 2008-2011: Hernando Herrera \u201989<\/li>\n
  • 2011-2013: Chris Rodriguez \u201905<\/li>\n
  • 2013-2017: Chris Matthews ’00<\/li>\n
  • 2013-2017: Luis Maes \u201900<\/li>\n
  • 2017-2024: Claudia Quintero \u201911<\/li>\n
  • 2024-Present: Claudia Casta\u00f1eda \u201917 and Claudia Bonilla \u201917<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    La Bol\u00edvar Network (BN) was founded\u00a0in 1997 by Alexandra Alvarez Minoff (CLAS \u201900) and was inspired by was inspired by The Ridley Scholarship Program. Alexandra attended \u2018Leadership 2000\u2019 where she studied the feasibility of creating such a network.\u00a0 She worked closely with Alumni Hall, where the idea was spearheaded to go through yearbooks to spot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"parent":14,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-157","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHistory - The Bol\u00edvar Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/aig.uvaalumni.org\/bolivar\/about\/history\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/aig.uvaalumni.org\\\/bolivar\\\/about\\\/history\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/aig.uvaalumni.org\\\/bolivar\\\/about\\\/history\\\/\",\"name\":\"History - 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