Fall Frame of Mind

Now's the best time to stroll the glorious grounds and experience Thomas Jefferson's university.

A young woman wearing faded blue jeans and chatting on a cell phone the size of a stick of chewing gum rushes across the Lawn at the University of Virginia, crunching dried leaves with every brisk step. Energetic and alive, she is full of promise, much like the school itself.

In September, when classes convene and cooler temperatures blow in with the vigor of a football team rushing onto the field, the entire town of Charlottesville bursts with the promise of autumn. This month fills the town's Corner-a place of bookstores, cafes, and coffee shops-with mingling students, alumni, locals, and faculty reuniting after the long months of summer. Rejuvenated from the seasonal break and eager to learn, the students walk with bouncy gaits, knowing that a clean slate of studies awaits. It's a promise.

A Place of Inspiration

Although the grounds of the redbrick school now span more than 1,600 acres and the university lists nearly 13,000 undergraduates, the heart of U. Va. is still the Academical Village, designed by Thomas Jefferson and completed in 1826. Jefferson considered education essential to democracy and therefore claimed this university among his greatest successes. The Academical Village combines students, faculty, and staff and embodies Jefferson's philosophy that living and learning should be connected.

Most everyone feels the same way after a visit here. Temperatures float in the 70s this month, begging for lightweight sweaters to be yanked from storage. Rays of sunshine spill onto the bronze of Thomas Jefferson by sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel. The statue, which stands in front of the Rotunda, is where students gather before proceeding down the Lawn to graduation.

As you walk away from the Rotunda's magnificent columns, you'll hear chatter streaming from the rows of dorm rooms. Although the tiny Lawn rooms are basic-no private baths and heated by fireplaces-it's an honor to live here. "Lawnies" apply for one of the 107 available rooms and are chosen by a number of criteria, including GPA, community activities, and service to U. Va.

Doors of student rooms are propped open, beckoning autumn breezes. A game of flag football produces a song of laughter that echoes against the crimson-colored buildings, wrapped in stately white columns. One young man sits at the base of a tall ginkgo tree swathed in butter yellow leaves. Seated at the center of the South's most legendary university, he intently reads the pages of Homer's Iliad.

All these things make a visit here an invigorating experience. The powerful architecture, inspiring student body, and crispness of the autumn air awaken a craving for enlightenment. You'll want to soak it up. That's another promise.

Copyright Southern Progress Corporation Sep 2004
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved