Arts & Sciences Opens Series of Bicentennial Celebrations

The College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences officially launched a year-long series of events celebrating the bicentennial anniversary of the first classes taught at the University of Virginia with a March 26 reception for A&S faculty and staff and members of the College Foundation in Shannon Library. 

Featuring an appearance by UVA’s Cavman mascot and a performance of “The Good Old Song” by members of the Hullabahoos a capella group, the reception opened with some introductory remarks by Buckner W. Clay Professor of Philosophy and dean of Arts & Sciences Christa Acampora on a milestone “200 years in the making.” 

The formal academic organization of the University began with just two schools and one “Academic Department” housing the subjects of the original curriculum that became the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. The first students started classes on March 7, 1825. 

“Just a short distance from where we are right now,  students gathered in the Academical Village began what was then — and, I believe, continues to be — a bold experiment in public higher education,” Acampora told attendees gathered in a Shannon Library seminar room. “We know that Academic Department became the College and the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and it was here in the College that the first students gathered in pursuit of knowledge.  

“Arts & Sciences is, as it was then, the heart of the University.” 

Today, Arts & Sciences is home to about 12,000 UVA undergraduate students, nearly 900 faculty members and about 600 staff. The College Foundation’s 31-member team and its growing network of alumni supporters and its 40-member volunteer board of trustees also play a key role in advancing the A&S academic mission, Acampora said. 

“All of you are tremendous contributors to and stewards of this wealth of talent and vision to realize an unprecedented achievement in public higher education,” she said.  

Reflecting on the bicentennial milestone and its significance for the College, Acampora said, Thomas Jefferson envisioned an unprecedented achievement in public higher education, one that would become a model for the nation and the world through a new kind of institution: an Academical Village, “in which faculty and students would learn with and from each other in uncommon ways and in an uncommon environment.” 

Before introducing a short video message from UVA president Jim Ryan, Acampora offered faculty and staff a reminder that UVA’s legacy was built by those who came before them. But “now the responsibility falls to us to steward that full legacy,” she said. 

“While Jefferson’s vision of who belonged in this community has changed enormously since opening day, we can continue to draw inspiration from both that founding idea and the contributions of generations of people who have walked and worked these Grounds to make life at the University possible,” Acampora said. 

The yearlong series of A&S events celebrating the bicentennial anniversary of the first day of classes began with a March 7 public lecture in the Dome Room of the Rotunda by professor Andrew O’Shaughnessy, an award-winning author and acclaimed expert on early American history. Information about additional events will be available in the near future.