AS CENTURY CLOSES, STUDENT RESEARCH WILL HELP BRING
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA'S COMPLEX MODERN HISTORY INTO FOCUS

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Jan. 2 -- If a college or university
has a written chronicle of its life, chances are it's by someone
commissioned to tell the "official" glowing story.  As the
University of Virginia prepares for the 21st century, dozens of
students are deeply involved this year in researching a
multi-dimensional picture of U.Va.'s 20th century history in all its
complexity.
	In the coming semester they will be working intensely not
only with masses of un researched documents but with alumni, faculty
and longtime employees to lay the groundwork for a yet-to-be-written
modern social history of U.Va., a university that has evolved during
the century from a small, struggling, all-male, all-white
institution into a leading international teaching and research
center with a diverse student body.  The University is dedicating
the 1995-96 year, which marks the centennial of a disastrous fire
that gutted founder Thomas Jefferson's landmark Rotunda library, to
looking inward and using its history as a subject and teaching tool
for students.
	"They are learning the art of discovery, but above all they
will be helping the University understand itself," said historian
Phyllis K. Leffler, assistant dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences, who will be leading a unique research course for 50
advanced undergraduates next semester examining U.Va.'s modern
history. "U.Va. has been a through a remarkable transformation in
the 20th century.  We need to understand the past in order to
recognize the present and prepare for the future."
	In addition to the special course, U.Va.'s history-oriented
Spring semester will include:
	¥ Publication of a student-researched directory that
required considerable historical detective work to list all known
student residents of the Lawn and Range, Jefferson's original
"academical villa
À 	¥ A special Rotunda exhibit, to open March 26 in conjunction
with the Lawn directory publication, depicting "One Hundred Years of
Life on the Lawn."  The exhibit will include an electronic
supplement on the World Wide Web, to which historical information
about U.Va., including audio and video material, could continually
be added.
	¥ Analysis of in-depth questionnaires that some 1,200 alumni
who were Lawn and Range residents from various 20th century decades
have agreed to answer.  The questionnaires will provide much new
information about U.Va. student life, family backgrounds and social
attitudes during different decades.  They will be deposited in the
University Archives. 
	¥ A University-wide workshop on Founder's Day, April 13,
focusing on U.Va.'s modern history.  The conference will conclude
with recommendations on possible uses for research material and new
research directions and in what form a modern history should be
published.
	Four U.Va. graduate students and one advanced undergraduate,
working with special Rotunda Fire Centennial stipends, have already
drafted papers and prepared detailed guides to primary sources
related to the University's 20th century history.  Their work
examines changes in academic life, student life during war times,
the University's 20th century architecture, and African American
labor at U.Va., among other topics.
	The University has had several important histories written
about it at various stages, most recently Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist Virginius Dabney's "Mr. Jefferson's University."  But
that ends in 1974, before recent decades of enormous change.  And
there is no body of literature on the 20th century social history of
the University, including students' and employees' backgrounds and
outlooks.
	For a full understanding of the modern University of
Virginia more research needs to be done on student life over the
changing decades, said Jeffrey Plank, assistant provost and chair of
the committee of students and faculty who have planned Rotunda Fire
Centennial year projects.  Among masses of untouched material in
University archives, "we have very little information about how
University life actually was for students," he said.  Of special
importance for further study will be accounts of student life for
the first women students and the first black students. 
	The U.Va. labor force and support staff, many of whose
families have worked on Grounds for generations and played key roles
in University life, are another important but little-researched part
of the institution's history, Plank said.
	The committee would welcome hearing about any private
material, including photos, documents or personal accounts, related
to U.Va.'s history, he added.
	The special Spring course will start with the assumption
that the University's 20th century history was vastly different from
the 19th, when social change was less rapid, Leffler said.  The
disastrous Rotunda fire itself was a catalyst for changes at U.Va.,
leading to the choosing of its first president and to new sources of
support and growth.  U.Va. also has been different from many U.S.
state universities, long drawing a high proportion of out-of-state
students, and a mix of public- and private-school-educated students,
and it has never followed a land-grant state university model of
offering much technical education.
	Students in the course will look first at broad issues in
the United States and education in the 20th century, and then focus
on U.Va. with group research projects.  Each small group will study
a decade, analyzing alumni questionnaires, researching primary
documents and conducting oral histories.
	By the end of the semester, which will include guest
lecturers from various disciplines, each group will produce a
research paper. The April 13 University-wide workshop will include
this student research and any other current research-in-progress
about University history.
	The course will offer students "new ways to learn about the
discipline of history," Leffler said.  "It's fundamentally a
Jeffersonian project, with an academical village of students and
faculty working together and actively engaged in learning.  All the
issues of modern America and the region are here.  It becomes a lens
to look at modern history."
	"It's also important to the institution to understand
itself, in order to know where it's going."
###  
December 27, 1995
	For interviews or additional information about University
history projects please contact:  Phyllis Leffler, (804) 924-8876;
Edna Johnston, (804) 924-7821 or Jeffrey Plank, (804) 924-6901.