The department mourns the passing of our colleague John Arras, Professor of Philosophy and Porterfield Professor of Bioethics, who died unexpectedly on March 9th. John was a widely respected scholar of bioethics and a beloved member of our department, which he joined in 1995. At the time of his passing, he was serving on the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, a Fellow of the Hastings Center, and Director of the UVa program in Bioethics. John was passionate about his teaching, and won several prestigious teaching awards, including the Outstanding Faculty Award from the Virginia State Council of Higher Education (2006).