THE PAST five years have been anything but tranquil at the University of Virginia, with the state’s flagship institution of higher learning time and again making national headlines.
What remains constant, however, is the school’s resilience and the stream of accomplished students who make U.Va. one of the nation’s premier universities. They were selected for the all-around potential they’ve demonstrated in their lives so far, and they chose U.Va. as the right place for them to grow and to prepare for the world that awaits.
In many ways, all that’s transpired in recent years has brought the real world to them—along with a national spotlight they could probably live without.
Like students at other state-supported colleges, they have seen state support diminish, saddling many of them and their families with even harsher budget realities than they anticipated.
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In 2012, with University President Teresa A. Sullivan in office just two years, then-rector Helen Dragas arranged Sullivan’s forced resignation. Students and faculty protested, and learned they could be heard when Sullivan was soon reinstated.
The ugliness of the real world visited Charlottesville in September 2014, when first-year student Hannah Graham was abducted from near the popular downtown mall and murdered, her remains found in a field five weeks later.
In November 2014, Rolling Stone magazine published its infamous “A Rape on Campus” story about an alleged rape that occurred during a party at a U.Va. fraternity house. A national firestorm on campus sexual assault ensued, though the story soon fell apart and was retracted by Rolling Stone in April 2015.
In January 2016, U.Va. student Otto Warmbier was arrested in North Korea for stealing a propaganda poster from his hotel, though he had actually left it in the hallway where he had taken it. After being convicted of committing “a hostile act against the state,” he was sentenced to 15 years at hard labor. He fell into a coma early in his captivity, and was released this June and flown home to Cincinnati, where he died days later.
Meanwhile, on Nov. 9, 2016, Sullivan issued a statement on the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. In it, she quoted Thomas Jefferson, as she had done before. But this time the quote touched a nerve, and students protested the reference to the school’s founder because he was a slaveholder. A petition decrying the reference was circulated among faculty. It would hardly be the last episode that would spur local debate about race and racism.
In March 2016 came the first call to remove the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville’s former Lee Park, now Emancipation Park. A spirited debate followed, and the City Council voted twice to remove the statue, most recently in April 2017, amid the filing of a lawsuit to block its removal.
In response, an alt-right, torch-lit rally was held at the park on May 13, followed by a Ku Klux Klan rally on July 8. On Aug. 12, a “Unite the Right” rally brought various white supremacist groups together in Charlottesville, spawning violence with counter-protesters. A woman was killed and many were hurt when a car was driven into a crowd of counter-protesters, and two Virginia state troopers died when their helicopter crashed as they surveilled the violence.
These most recent events will probably stir student activism on campus in the coming weeks and months. We hope these are peaceful gatherings that encourage tolerance and racial equality as much as they denounce the purveyors of hate who descended upon their city.
The students will also continue to excel academically, volunteer in countless community activities, and strive to add to U.Va.’s 25 NCAA national championships.
Young people attend college to learn and to prepare for the future. At U.Va., students are finding these lessons close by, in all manner of events on their grounds and in their city.
Like those at other state-supported colleges, students at the University of Virginia have seen
state support diminish, saddling many of them and their families with
even harsher budget realities than they anticipated.