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UNESCO World Heritage Site
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Official name: Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville |
History
1800s
Founding of the University
On January 18, 1800, Thomas Jefferson, the Vice President of the United States, alluded to plans for a new college in a letter written to British scientist Joseph Priestley: "We wish to establish in the upper country of Virginia, and more centrally for the State, a University on a plan so broad and liberal and modern, as to be worth patronizing with the public support, and be a temptation to the youth of other States to come and drink of the cup of knowledge and fraternize with us."In 1802, then serving as President of the United States, Jefferson wrote to artist Charles Willson Peale that his concept of the new university would be "on the most extensive and liberal scale that our circumstances would call for and our faculties meet." Virginia was already home to The College of William & Mary, but Jefferson lost confidence in his alma mater, partly because of its religious stances and lack of courses in the sciences. Although Jefferson flourished under the tutelage of College of William & Mary professors William Small and George Wythe, his concerns with the College became great enough by 1800 that he wrote: "We have in that State, a college just well enough endowed to draw out the miserable existence to which a miserable constitution has doomed it." Thus, he began planning a university more aligned with his educational ideals.
In the presence of James Madison, the Marquis de Lafayette toasted Jefferson as "father" of the University of Virginia at the school's inaugural banquet in 1824. The University's first classes met in March 1825. Other universities of the day allowed only three choices of specialization: Medicine, Law, and Religion. Under Jefferson's guidance, the University of Virginia became the first in the United States to allow specializations in such diverse fields as Astronomy, Architecture, Botany, Philosophy, and Political Science. Jefferson explained, "This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."
Jefferson was intimately involved in the University, hosting Sunday dinners at his Monticello home for faculty and students until his death. So taken with the import of what he viewed the University's foundations and potential to be, and counting it amongst his greatest accomplishments, Jefferson insisted his grave mention only his status as author of the Declaration of Independence and Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia. Thus, he eschewed mention of his Presidency and national accomplishments in favor of being remembered for the newly established university.
The same year, 1826, poet Edgar Allen Poe enrolled at the University, where he excelled in Latin. The Raven Society, an organization named after Poe's most famous poem, continues to maintain 13 Wast Range, the room Poe inhabited during the single semester he attended the University (he left because of financial difficulties).
The School of Engineering and Applied Science opened in 1836, making it the first engineering school in the United States to be attached to a comprehensive university.
The War Between the States
At the onset of the War Between the States, the University of Virginia was the largest in the Southern United States and second nationwide only to Harvard University in its scope. Unlike many other colleges in the South, the University was kept open throughout the conflict, an especially remarkable feat with its state being the site of more battles than any other. In March 1865, Union General George Armstrong Custer marched troops into Charlottesville, whereupon faculty and community leaders convinced him to spare the University. Though Union troops camped on the Lawn and damaged many of the Pavilions, Custer's men left four days later without bloodshed and the University was able to return to its educational routines.1900s
The University's First President
Jefferson, ever the skeptic of central authority and bureaucracy, had originally decided that the University of Virginia would have no President. Rather, this power was to be shared by a Rector and a Board of Visitors. As the 19th century waned, it became obvious this cumbersome arrangement was incapable of adequately handling the many administrative and fundraising tasks that had become necessary to support the growing University.In 1904, Edwin Alderman resigned as President of Tulane University to take the same position at the University of Virginia. As the University's first President, he embarked on a number of reforms for both the University and the state of Virginia's public educational systems in general. A reform specific to the University of Virginia was one of the first school-sponsored financial aid programs in all of higher learning and, though primitive by today's standards, it included a loan provision for needy men who were unable to pay. Initially controversial and opposed by many at what had become a very traditional school, Alderman's progressive ideas stood the test of time. He remains the longest-tenured President in the University's history, having served for twenty-six years until his death in 1931. Alderman Library, among many popular landmarks at UVA, is his namesake.
World War Two
During World War II, Virginia was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.William Faulkner
Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner became a writer-in-residence at the University in 1957, keeping open office hours until his death in 1962. He was also a lecturer at the school, and took the title of "Consultant on American Literature to the Alderman Library". Faulkner donated a large collection of his manuscripts and typesets (a request reaffirmed by his wife and daughter) to the library upon his death.Desegregation and the Admission of Women
The University of Virginia began the process of integration even before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision mandated school desegregation nationwide, when Gregory Swanson sued to gain entrance into the University's Law School in 1950. Following his successful lawsuit, a handful of black graduate students were admitted during the 1950's, though no black undergraduates were admitted until 1955, and U VA like other southern schools continued to resist full integration until well into the 1960's.The University first admitted a few selected women to graduate studies in the late 1890's, and to certain programs such as nursing and education in the 1920s and 1930's.[20] In 1944, Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia became the Women's Undergraduate Arts and Sciences Division of the University of Virginia. Until that time, the University of Virginia had not admitted women as undergraduates. In 1970 the Charlottesville campus became fully co-educational, and in 1972 Mary Washington became an independent state university.[21] Women were officially allowed to matriculate at U Va in 1970 after a court suit prompted the Board of Visitors to adopt full coeducation over a two year period. In 1970, the first class of 450 undergraduate women entered UVA (39 percent), while the number of men admitted remained constant. By 2003 women comprised 55 percent of the undergraduate student body
2000s
Decline in State Support
In 2004, resulting from a stark decrease in state support, the University of Virginia became the first public university in the United States to receive more of its funding from private sources than from the state with which it is associated. Thanks to a Charter initiative that passed the Virginia General Assembly and was signed into law by then-Governor Mark Warner in 2005,[22] the University – and any other public universities in the state that choose to do so (currently Virginia Tech and William & Mary) – will have greater autonomy over its own affairsToday, minority students are particularly successful at the University of Virginia. According to the Fall 2005 issue of Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, UVA "has the highest black student graduation rate of the Public Ivies at 86 percent." The journal goes on to state that "by far the most impressive is the University of Virginia with its high black student graduation rate and its small racial difference in graduation rates."
The University of Virginia, together with Harvard University and Princeton University, ended its Early Decision and Early Action programs in September 2006, stating that such policies limit poor and middle class students from competing on an equal footing with wealthier applicants.[25][26] For its part, U.Va. noted that of 947 Early Decision acceptances for the Class of 2010, fewer than 20 of those students had applied for financial aid. Non-binding early action was instated for the first time for the class of 2016 as “early action did not have the same impact on students of lower socioeconomic means because it is not binding.”
First Woman President Appointed, Removed, and Reinstated
In 2010 the University welcomed Teresa A. Sullivan as the University's first woman President. Two years later, during the Spring of 2012, the first woman Rector Helen Dragas decided to remove President Sullivan. Instead of convening the Board of Visitors to discuss firing the President, Ms. Dragas secretly lobbied Board members in one-on-one phone calls to obtain support, and then surprised President Sullivan in her office on June 8, 2012 with a demand for her resignation. Rector Dragas convened a three member Executive Committee meeting to accept the forced resignation, and then required Sullivan's subordinates to report directly to the Rector's office, effectively removing President Sullivan from any remaining management role. President Sullivan in a subsequent New York Times interview said she does not know why she was removed.[30] Professor Larry Sabato in the U Va Alumni Magazine called it "a midnight knifing," a "palace coup" that would be "defeated by a grassroots rebellion."The resignation elicited strong protests from faculty and students, including a faculty senate demand for the removal of Rector Dragas and Vice Rector Mark J. Kington – and demands from the student government for an explanation for Sullivan's ouster. In the face of this pressure, including a mandate from Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell to resolve the issue at their June 26 meeting, or he would request the resignations of the entire Board, the Board unanimously voted to reinstate Sullivan as president.
The Grounds (Campus)
Most notably designed by inspiration of the Rotunda and Lawn are the expansive green spaces headed by Rotunda-like buildings built at Duke University in 1892, Johns Hopkins University in 1902, Rice University in 1910, Dallas Hall, the central building at Southern Methodist University (1912), Peabody College of Vanderbilt University in 1915, the Green at the University of Delaware in 1916, Killian Court at MIT in 1916 (which was coincidentally founded by William Barton Rogers, who immediately prior to founding MIT was a Natural Philosophy professor at the University of Virginia for 19 years), the "Grand Auditorium" of Tsinghua University in Beijing built in 1917, the campus of Yale Divinity School (the Sterling Quad, 1932), and, indeed, the new grounds of the University's own Darden School of Business (designed by Robert A.M. Stern).
Jefferson financed the building of the University through personal loans from James Monroe and General John Hartwell Cocke, II. Monroe, Cocke, and Jefferson each put up 1/3 of the money to procure the land and build the initial buildings. Gen. Cocke was a General in the War of 1812, a local plantation owner, and friend of Thomas Jefferson. He owned Bremo Plantation, located southwest of Charlottesville near where Bremo Bluff, VA is today. These loans were never repaid by Jefferson.
Although undoubtedly useful to the University in providing additional classroom space, and not unattractive, if pedestrian in comparison to the Jeffersonian Pavilions, the White buildings have the effect of closing off the sweeping perspective, as originally conceived by Jefferson, down the Lawn across open countryside toward the distant mountains. The White buildings at the foot of the Lawn effectively create a huge "quadrangle", albeit one far grander than any traditional college quadrangle at the University of Cambridge or University of Oxford.
In concert with the United States Bicentennial in 1976, Stanford White's changes to the Rotunda were removed and the building was returned to Jefferson's original design. Renovated according to original sketches and historical photographs, a three-story Rotunda opened on Jefferson's birthday, April 13, 1976.
In 2001, John Kluge donated 7,378 acres (29.86 km2) of additional lands to the University. Kluge desired the core of the land to be developed by the University, and the surrounding land to be sold to fund an endowment supporting the core. A large part of the gift was soon sold to musician Dave Matthews, of the Dave Matthews Band, to be utilized in an organic farming project. It is unknown what the University will do with its "core" portion of the land.
The Virginia Department of Transportation maintains the roads through the University grounds as State Route 302.[40]
The University, together with Jefferson's home at Monticello, is a World Heritage Site, one of only three modern sites so listed in the 50 states, the others being the Statue of Liberty and Independence Hall. It was the first collegiate campus worldwide to be awarded the designation.
Modern luminary gatherings and events
Nearly two decades later, in 1958, Senator John F. Kennedy visited and spoke in the same space with brothers Robert Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, the latter of whom was managing JFK's 1958 Senatorial re-election campaign from his dormitory at the University of Virginia.
In the early 1960s, civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., James Farmer, Aaron Henry, Bayard Rustin, and others spoke at the University under the sponsorship of the Virginia Council on Human Relations, a student organization which presented speakers on Grounds who opposed the state's prevailing policy of racial segregation. John Lewis, Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee spoke in 1965 while his head was still bandaged from a police beating he received leading the first march from Selma.
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech at Old Cabell Hall in 1963 met with no resistance of any kind among the student body or administration.He called for a doubling of black registrations at universities in the South. African-American enrollment has since been increased tenfold at the University. Five years later in 1968, when King was shot, the Rotunda flag was flown at half-mast and then-President of the University Edgar Shannon, Jr. led a U.Va. memorial service in Cabell Hall. All classes at U.Va. were made optional during the service.
To commemorate the United States Bicentennial in 1976, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II strolled the Lawn and lunched in the Dome Room of the Rotunda, one of five American sites she publicly visited.
The Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and several other Nobel Peace laureates stayed on Grounds for one week in 1998 while attending the University's historic Nobel Laureates Conference.
Student housing
This section requires expansion. (October 2011) |
Admissions
High preference among high achievers
Admissions statistics
Another record was established for the Class of 2012, with 18,776 applications for 3,170 spots.Applications rose for each of the four undergraduate schools that accept first-year students into their programs: Architecture, Arts & Sciences, Engineering, and Nursing.
The Class of 2013 saw a tremendous increase to yet another new record high of 21,511 applications.37% of applicants were accepted.The University continued to see interest from an increasingly diverse pool, as applications increased by another 22 percent for African American students, 56 percent for Hispanic students, 50 percent for international students, and 100 percent for Native Americans.
The record-setting trend of the previous years was continued for the Class of 2014. Application numbers rose to 22,516, of which 32% were offered admission. Average SAT scores (math, critical reading, writing) rose 10 points from the previous year to 1,993 points. 30% of the Class of 2014, or 983 students, identified themselves as members of one or more minority group.
The surge in applications continued for the Class of 2016, which was the first time UVA allowed high school students to apply early action. 11,753 students applied early action and 3,187 were offered admission.Overall applications for both early action and regular decision grew by 17.64% to 28,200, an increase of 4,229 from the year before.[64] The average SAT score for admitted students were 1,413 on a 1,600-point scale, and 2,119 on a 2,400-point scale. Plus, 98% of the admitted students were in the Top 10% of their high school class.
Academics
The University of Virginia places #1 among state-supported universities in the United States in the production of Rhodes Scholars. The University's 47th Rhodes Scholar was named in 2010.
Tuition is lower for both in-state and out-of-state students than at most other top universities. The student composition of the University is such that it was described in a feature article in the 2006 America's Best Colleges edition of U.S. News and World Report as being "chock full of academic stars who turn down private schools like Duke, Princeton, and Cornell for, they say, a better value."[69] Indeed, in 2008 the Center for College Affordability and Productivity named the University the top value among all national public colleges and universities; and in 2009, the University was again named the "#1 Best Value" among public universities in the United States in a separate ranking by USA TODAY and the Princeton Review.
Rankings and recognition
University rankings | |
---|---|
National | |
ARWU[73] | 56 |
Forbes[74] | 36 |
U.S. News & World Report[75] | 24 |
Global | |
ARWU[76] | 101-150 |
QS[77] | 126 |
Times[78] | 135 |
The University of Virginia has been recognized numerous times as having the highest African American graduation rate among public universities, and by a wide margin.Among the Top Four public universities that consistently rank highest in the ubiquitous U.S. News rankings, the University of Virginia has an 87% black student graduation rate, some 15 to 20 percentage points higher than the 70% at the University of California, Berkeley, 68% at the University of Michigan, and 73% at UCLA. In addition, due in part to California Proposition 209 and the Michigan Proposal 2, the University also has much higher African American populations than these peer universities. The University of Virginia has an undergraduate student body that is 8.7% African American, while the University of California undergraduate student bodies at Berkeley and UCLA are just 3.2% and 3.7% African American, respectively. Only 5.2% of University of Michigan undergraduates are African American. Thus, relative to its closest peers, the University of Virginia has twice to three times the proportion of African American undergraduate students, and they go on to graduate at significantly higher rates.
The University of Virginia has many highly regarded graduate programs. Programs ranked in their respective fields' top 10 by U.S. News & World Report include Law, Tax Law, International Law, architecture,18th through 20th Century British Literature, African-American Literature, American Literature, American Literature Before 1865, Creative Writing, U.S. Colonial History, Political Theory, Developmental Psychology, Adult/Medical-Surgical Nursing, Psychiatric/Mental Health Nursing, Management, Elementary Teacher Education, Secondary Teacher Education, and Special Education.
Echols Scholars (College of Arts and Sciences) and Rodman Scholars (School of Engineering and Applied Sciences), which include 6-7% of undergraduate students, receive no financial benefits, but are entitled to special advisors, priority course registration, residence in designated dorms and fewer curricular constraints than other students.
The University offers 48 bachelor's degrees, 94 master's degrees, 55 doctoral degrees, 6 educational specialist degrees, and 2 first-professional degrees (Medicine and Law) to its students.
The University of Virginia Library System holds 5 million volumes. Its Electronic Text Center, established in 1992, has put 70,000 books online as well as 350,000 images that go with them. These e-texts are open to anyone and, as of 2002, were receiving 37,000 daily visits (compared to 6,000 daily visitors to the physical libraries).
The University of Virginia is a member of a consortium engaged in the construction and operation of the Large Binocular Telescope in the Mount Graham International Observatory of the Pinaleno Mountains of southeastern Arizona. It is also a member of both the Astrophysical Research Consortium, which operates telescopes at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, and the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy which operates the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the Gemini Observatory and the Space Telescope Science Institute. The University of Virginia hosts the headquarters of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which operates the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Very Large Array radio telescope made famous in the Carl Sagan television documentary Cosmos and film Contact. The North American Atacama Large Millimeter Array Science Center is also located at the Charlottesville NRAO site.
UVA also hosts the Rare Book School, a non-profit organization that studies the history of books and printing. The University is one of 60 elected members of the Association of American Universities, and the only member representing the Commonwealth of Virginia. Along with the University of Connecticut, UVA is one of two American member universities of Universitas 21, an international consortium of research-intensive universities. On May 14, 2007, University President John Casteen was named Chairman of the Board of the organization.
The university campus was recognized by MSN as one of the most beautiful college campuses in the world.[103]
Graduate placement
In 2003, The Wall Street Journal studied the undergraduate backgrounds of entering students at "elite" graduate programs.[104] The University of Virginia with 82 placements (2.6% of class) placed 33rd overall and third among all state-supported universities in elite graduate placement.[105] No other state university on the Atlantic Seaboard had greater than one-third the number of placements as the University of Virginia (e.g., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had 26 placements, Georgia Institute of Technology had 20).Faculty
Faculty were originally housed in the Academical Village among the students, serving as both instructors and advisors, continuing on to include the McCormick Road Old Dorms, though this has been phased out in favor of undergraduate student resident advisors (RAs). Several of the faculty, however, continue the University tradition of living on Grounds, either on the Lawn in the various Pavilions, or as fellows at one of three residential colleges (Brown College at Monroe Hill, Hereford College, and the International Residential College).
Beginning in 2002, the Cavalier Daily student newspaper has posted faculty compensation online annually.
Colleges and schools
- School of Architecture
- College of Arts & Sciences
- Darden Graduate School of Business Administration
- McIntire School of Commerce
- School of Continuing and Professional Studies
- Curry School of Education
- School of Engineering and Applied Science
- School of Law
- School of Medicine
- School of Nursing
- Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy
- College at Wise
Financial strength
Endowment
Managed by the University of Virginia Investment Management Company, and with $5.24 billion as of August 4, 2011 the University of Virginia has a per capita endowment of $255,000 per student; this is the largest per capita endowment of any public university in the United States. Considering public university endowments across the country, the University of Michigan ($122,000) is second to U.Va. among national publics in per capita endowment funds. Both are in the top 5 for recent growth rates nationwide.When compared to other public universities in its home state, the per-student endowment at the University of Virginia is several times larger than its nearest competitors, The College of William & Mary ($80,000 per student) and Virginia Tech ($16,000). It is also several times larger than the highest among flagship institutions of nearby states, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ($55,000) and University of Maryland, College Park ($8,600).
Triple-A credit rating
The University of Virginia is one of only two public universities in the U.S. that has a Triple-A credit rating from all three major credit rating agencies, along with the University of Texas at Austin. This allows it to borrow money and fund projects with the best possible conditions and terms.Athletics
Main article: Virginia Cavaliers
The football team won a share of the ACC Championship in both 1989 and 1995 (both before the conference had a championship game). After never reaching a bowl before 1984, the team has played in 17 bowl games since. The program is also notable for its recent high draft picks in the National Football League, including the #4 overall pick of 2006, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, and the #2 overall pick of 2008, Chris Long. The program is a party to three major rivalry games in the conference: the longest series in the ACC, the South's Oldest Rivalry with North Carolina; the Commonwealth Cup with Virginia Tech (part of the greater Virginia-Virginia Tech rivalry); and the Beltway Brawl with Maryland. While the Cavaliers have played UNC more times than any other rival, all of these opponents – North Carolina, Virginia Tech, and Maryland – each list Virginia as their schools' longest-standing football rivals.
In 2006, the men's lacrosse team won its fourth NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship, and sixth including the pre-tournament era. In the title game, Virginia defeated UMass 15-7 in front of a record crowd of 47,062 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, the first lacrosse crowd to surpass the crowd size of the men's basketball Final Four and the largest crowd to witness any NCAA Championship during the year.The team finished the season a perfect 17–0, the best record in NCAA lacrosse history. Five years later the Cavaliers won the 2011 championship behind eventual Tewaaraton Trophy winner Steele Stanwick, bringing their tournament era championship total to 5, which puts them fourth amongst NCAA Division I teams and first amongst ACC Teams.
Davenport Field, where the UVa baseball team plays, is also new, opening in 2002. In Brian O'Connor's first 4 seasons at the helm after being made the head baseball coach in July 2003, the team has averaged 44 wins per year and become a nationally-ranked power. The team has led the ACC in team ERA for 4 consecutive years. In 2009, the baseball team won a place in the College World Series for the first time.
The soccer teams are also national powers, with men's soccer having won 6 national championships to date including its most recent in December 2009. The women's team is regularly ranked in the top 10 nationally. The teams play their home matches at Klöckner Stadium, the largest soccer stadium in the ACC. The men's team has been invited to the NCAA Tournament for 26 consecutive years and made the College Cup many times. Former Coach Bruce Arena has coached the US national team and currently coaches the Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer.
The Aquatics and Fitness Center (webcam) has been popular among University students for working out and swimming since its opening in Fall 1996, and it is also where the Swimming & Diving teams compete in home meets. The men's swimming and diving team won 8 consecutive ACC Championships between 1999 and 2006. The women's swimming team won its fourth consecutive ACC Championship on February 19, 2011.[114]
Also winning consecutive ACC titles has been the men's tennis team, which has won 4 consecutive regular season ACC Championships. Playing their home matches at the Sheridan Snyder Tennis Center, the men's tennis team had their best season ever in 2007, finishing with a 30-4 record and a #2 national ranking. Somdev Devvarman became the first ACC player in conference history to win the NCAA Singles Championship, which he won in two consecutive years. In addition, the tennis team beat Ohio State for the 2008 National Indoor Tennis Championships, 4-1.
Now that Virginia Tech has joined the ACC, the Virginia-Virginia Tech rivalry has been strengthened across a number of sports. This rivalry between the University and its larger neighbor to the southwest is followed statewide. UVA's athletic teams have bested the Hokies through the years in many of the major sports. The two universities also faced off in the Commonwealth Challenge between 2005 and 2007, with the Cavaliers routing the Hokies in each Challenge: 14.5 to 7.5 in 2005-2006 and 14 to 8 in 2006-2007. The competition was then dropped out of sensitivity following the Virginia Tech massacre.
Fight song
The Cavalier Song is the official fight song of the University of Virginia. The song was a result of a contest held in 1923 by the University. The Cavalier Song, with lyrics by Lawrence Haywood Lee, Jr. and music by Fulton Lewis, Jr., was selected as the winner. Generally the second half of the song is played during sporting events. Until the 2008 football season, the entire fight song could be heard during the Cavalier Marching Band's entrance at home football games.Student life
Student life at the University of Virginia is marked by a number of unique traditions. The campus of the University is referred to as "the Grounds." Freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors are instead called first-, second-, third-, and fourth-years in order to reflect Jefferson's belief that learning is a never-ending process, rather than one to be completed within four years. Also, students do not "graduate" from the University; instead, they "take" their degrees. Professors are traditionally addressed as "Mr." or "Ms." instead of "Doctor" (although medical doctors are the exception and are called "Doctor") in deference to Thomas Jefferson's desire to have an equality of ideas, discriminated by merit and unburdened by title.In 2005, the University was named "Hottest for Fitness" by Newsweek magazine,due in part to 94% of its students using one of the four indoor athletics facilities. Particularly popular is the Aquatics and Fitness Center, situated across the street from the Alderman Dorms.
The University of Virginia sent more workers to the Peace Corps in 2006 and 2008[118] than any other "medium-sized" university in the United States. Volunteerism at the University is centered in Madison House, which offers numerous opportunities to serve others. Among the numerous programs offered are tutoring, housing improvement, and an organization called Hoos Against Hunger, which gives leftover food from restaurants to the homeless of Charlottesville, rather than allowing it to be discarded.
The student life building on the University of Virginia is called Newcomb Hall. It is home to the Student Activities Center (SAC) and the Media Activities Center (MAC), where student groups can get leadership consulting and use computing and copying resources, as well as several meeting rooms for student groups. Student Council, the student self-governing body, holds meetings Tuesdays at 6PM in the Newcomb South Meeting Room. Student Council, or "StudCo," also holds office hours and regular committee meetings in the newly renovated Newcomb Programs and Council (PAC) Room. The PAC also houses the University Programs Council and Class Councils. Newcomb basement is home to both the office of the independent student newspaper The Declaration, The Cavalier Daily, and the Consortium of University Publications.
A national publication's survey recently revealed that U.Va.'s students give their library system higher marks than students at any other school in the United States. The best-known library is Alderman Library for the humanities and social sciences, which contains 10 floors of stacks with many useful study nooks hidden among them. U.Va.'s renowned Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library features one of the premier collections of American Literature in the country as well as two copies of the original printing of the Declaration of Independence. It was in this library in 2006 that Robert Stilling, an English Graduate Student, discovered an unpublished Robert Frost poem from 1918Clemons Library, next to Alderman, is a popular study spot. Hundreds of students can be found gathered on its various quiet floors on any given night. Clark Hall, home of the Science & Engineering Library, also scores high marks. One of the notable features of Clark Hall is the Mural Room, decorated by two three-panel murals by Allyn Cox, depicting the Moral Law and the Civil Law. The murals were finished and set in place in 1934.[121] As of 2006, the University and Google were working on the digitization of selected collections from the library system.
As at many universities, alcohol use is a part of the social life of many undergraduate students at the University. Concerns particularly arose about a past trend of Fourth-Year students consuming excessive alcohol during the day of the last home football game. This trend has been short lived, as the vast majority of undergraduates approach drinking in a responsible manner., President Casteen announced a $2.5 million donation from Anheuser-Busch to fund a new UVA-based Social Norms Institute in September 2006.[124] A spokesman said: "the goal is to get students to emulate the positive behavior of the vast majority of students." However, based on ratings of sex, sports, and nightlife, the college was ranked at number one in Playboy's 2012 list of Top 10 Party Schools.
Student safety
While Charlottesville, which typically registers zero to three murders per year, is generally considered a safe city, students have been involved on both sides of homicides in recent history.- On March 22, 1986, physiology graduate student Pat Collins disappeared after using an ATM in downtown Charlottesville. He was never found.
- On November 8, 2003, student Andrew Alston stabbed an Albemarle County firefighter to death during a fight on 14th Street. His manslaughter sentence resulted in a jail term of three years, prompting allegations of special treatment for students.
- On May 3, 2010 in what has become known as the UVA Lacrosse Killing, 22-year-old UVA women's lacrosse player Yeardley Love was found unresponsive in her 14th Street apartment. Later that day, former romantic partner and then-current lacrosse player George Huguely was charged with her murder.
Student events
One of the largest events at the University of Virginia is called Springfest. It takes place every year in the spring, and features a large free concert and various inflatables and games.Another popular event is Foxfield, a steeplechase and social gathering that takes place nearby in Albemarle County in April, and which is annually attended by thousands of students from the University of Virginia and neighboring colleges.
Honor system
HONOR PLEDGE
On my honor as a student, I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment/examination.In theory, the Honor System allows the faculty to do such things as assign timed take-home examinations, and research or studies to be done in a particular way, with the assurance that the strictures placed on the student will be observed. However, no professor is required to extend such courtesies. The student is often required to sign all examinations or assignments with the following pledge: "On my honor as a student, I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment/examination." The Honor System allows the student to purchase books and supplies on-Grounds upon giving his or her word to pay, and some members of the Charlottesville community accept the word of the student regarding off-Grounds business transactions.
While cheating convictions are relatively rare (24 students were dismissed during the 2003 academic year, and 21 more were dismissed in 2004), one large cheating scandal occurred in 2001. Physics professor and Hereford College Dean Louis Bloomfield, based on a student's complaint, had suspicions that some of his students had copied portions of their term papers from fraternity archives in his Introduction to Physics class. After devising a computer program to detect copied phrases of at least six sequential words, over 150 students were accused of plagiarizing or allowing others to plagiarize their work over the previous five semesters. Although over 100 of these students were eventually exonerated, 48 students either admitted guilt or were convicted, and were therefore dismissed from the University. Three of these students had already graduated, and their degrees were subsequently revoked.