Lenin = Materialist Position * Objective reality where matter moves in space and time independently of human perception/mind * Only one real framework of time and space * The "relative"ness of space and time moves towards the absolute truth of objective reality * Criticized POV that thought of time and space as "modes where we perceive things apart" as it denied objective reality

DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.03.072

Resource: (IMSR Cat# UNC_134,RRID:IMSR_UNC:134)

Curator: @ethanbadger

SciCrunch record: RRID:IMSR_UNC:134

What is this?

Reflection on the Democratic Writing Project: Overall, I believe that learning about the Rockfish Gap Report is incredibly important, however group annotation may not be the best way to go about it. Rather than connecting the document to Danielle Allen or other writers and speakers from the engagement series, the annotations seem to be more superficial. An alternative for the project could be group projects or discussions about different aspects of the report. If we want to connect the document to Danielle Allen, we could compare and contrast the Rockfish Gap with the Declaration of Independence.

I find it interesting that Ethics was considered its own class at the inception of the University, as in modern times ethics is typically not incorporated into required curriculum. However, the New Curriculum is able to reflect this original intent for UVA by requiring Ethical Engagement classes.

this sentence says that education can bring happiness

this sentence says that the location for the university was chosen because it was where a lot of white people lived. It helps me understand why the demographic is the way that it is.

This is an interesting sentence, as the claim being made is that like science and improvement, the condition of man can be ameliorated through education, and that it is "despondent," or despairing to think that man's condition cannot be improved. However, they chose to accept the fact that the condition of African Americans cannot be improved, and therefore they should not be allowed access to the education provided.

Reading this certainly caught me off guard due to the fact that Thomas Jefferson was adamant about creating a secular space for learning. Furthermore, Mr. Jefferson was credited for the origin of the "separation of church and State" phrase used in the Constitution. I thought it was ironic how "the genuine fruit of the alliance between church and State" happened to be the founding document of the university fathered by Thomas Jefferson.

This is an important paragraph as it directly highlights the idea of a liberal arts education - an idea that the University of Virginia still puts forth into practice. Another thing to note is that the paragraph explicitly states the point of the liberal arts education is to form balanced members of society in order to promote "public prosperity & individual happiness." The part about individual happiness could mean that the writers of the Rockfish Gap Report expected a liberal arts education to make students more happy with their studies and lives after the University.

This sentence shows that the men who wrote the document expected a certain level of education of those who enrolled, and left how that basic level was met to the families of students as well as the government. They expected the government to take charge of educating the poor.

The men who wrote the document have a clear emphasis throughout on language, but here they place an emphasis on an earlier form of the same English they spoke (and we still speak). It's interesting that they place such importance on being familiar with the language of the past, and the roots of the modern language, and therefore their modern world. The importance of recognizing the past and learning how it has led to the future is still an important thought process at UVA today.

It is fascinating to consider how much the culture of our society has changed since 1818. In today's society, fifteen year olds are basically fully dependent on their parents and required by law to attend high school. They cannot even drive vehicles on their own, so there is no way that they would ever be able to make it without their parents today. In 1818, fifteen year olds were considered mature enough to go to college away from their parents when I still find myself looking for advice from my parents almost daily at eighteen. This statement is even more surprising when put in the context of the time period when there were only two universities in Virginia, and transportation was significantly slower. There were also no forms of communication apart from letters at this point in history, so the transition from living at home to college was immensely different than it is today. When these boys went to college, they were really alone. It is very interesting to consider the young age at which boys were completely split from their parents to go to college 200 years ago.

The Board of Commissioners for the University of Virginia only meet twice a year to discuss how the university should run and in which ways. I find this interesting because they only have 2 meetings a year to discuss everything within the university. Similar to how Congress is only scheduled to meet once a year. It's hard to think that they can discuss everything necessary to run an institution in such few amounts of meetings.

There are many clauses in this document, as well as old traditions established by Jefferson himself, that are still valued as an integral part of student life today. It surprised me that an emphasis on the importance of exercise isn't one of these values, because it seems to be distinctly outlined here. However, the comparatively insignificant emphasis on exercise by the university's administration today is probably due to the militaristic nature of the exercise mentioned in this document. Although there are some connections between mental capacity and physical health in the Rockfish Gap report, the need for students to exercise to become apt fighters is simply outdated and no longer necessary.

Although this sentence sounds agreeable in its mission to create a world full of compassionate, reflective people, it becomes ironic after considering the limited scope of individuals allowed to study at this university and the school's racist past. Being an "example of virtue" and performing "correct action" are values that UVA students still strive to uphold, so it's upsetting that when writing this, UVA's founders thought that women and African-Americans couldn't be "examples of virtue." Also, it's interesting to note that slaveholding and racism would have likely been considered "correct action" at the time.

This relates to a reading we did in the class "The Individual and Society". The reading was a piece by Richard Rodriguez where he argues that the phrase "minority student" is a paradox, as he feels that education is the key to moving away from minority status. Essentially, he is saying that education is our key to equal opportunity. This relates to this sentence in the Rockfish Gap, as the authors also argue that education is the barrier between themselves and the indigenous peoples.

I find this part to be incredibly interesting, as society's attitude regarding the arts seems to have changed little since the founding of the University. The authors of the Rockfish Gap refer to the arts as "innocent," implying that they are childish and not the foundation of a mature job. The fact that UVA did not at first incorporate arts classes and professors, and rather just provided space for them, shows that they were considered a hobby rather than a profession. While UVA has made great strides in providing arts clubs, classes, and majors; society as a whole still seems to look down on the arts a job. For instance, the public school system emphasizes getting marketable majors rather than majors you enjoy. As a whole, I believe that we should give the visual and performance arts more dignity and importance as an area of education.

As my fellow students have mentioned, Jefferson is obviously intending only for white, male students to reap the benefits of higher learning from the University of Virginia. African-Americans, in Jefferson's eyes, did not have a place in higher education. Further exemplifying this is the comparison of the Rockfish Gap Report and Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, specifically Query 14. In this section, Jefferson makes a very paradoxical argument. He says that African-Americans cannot integrate into white society, yet he "extend[s] to them [his] alliance and protection." Jefferson's racism and injustice are prominent in both documents, which is something that as a community we must acknowledge and talk about. We all know Jefferson as a key writer of the Declaration of Independence and founder of our University, yet I believe we must not forget that he did not always do the "right" thing.

This statement regarding education encompassing morals in addition to academics is insightful and worthy of praise. However, it is very hard to take a quotation and claim of morality seriously when there are several other remarks in this text regarding racism and disrespect for other ways of life and culture. How morally upright can someone be when they put certain lives above others? Also, what kind of morals was the university focused on during this time period? For most of the United States in 1818, morals were founded upon religion, and in another section of this text, it is stated that "we have proposed no professor of Divinity." This causes me to wonder where these morals taught at the university originate from and what exactly they are. Maybe the reasoning behind the founding of the honor code later during this particular century was the fact that there is no one text that provided a moral compass for the university, but the university wanted to teach morals in some way. Despite this statement being hypocritical because of the racism of this document, it is also innovative because it regards morals and religion as being separate.

This statement goes hand in hand with the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Thomas Jefferson was a huge advocate for separation of church and state and the freedom to choose which religion to practice. He believed religion was a personal matter that government had no place in. This statement really highlights the importance of religious freedom to Thomas Jefferson. The fact that he wrote in the founding document of the University of Virginia that they would propose no professor of Divinity proved that it was an important issue to him that needed to be stressed.

Although the establishment of the University was an effort to further the white population, the board provides hope for the application of education. Here, they highlight how education gives us the opportunity to act. They highlight how our intelligence is not fixed. We can always improve. This also give hope to the fact that education should not be racial, because any human has the ability to improve their education. The board let their ignorance blind them from what should be really taken into account.

Unlike other institutions of higher education at the time where a church was the central building, Jefferson wanted a library to be the central building of the University of Virginia--a place for students to learn and study. Jefferson's intention of the University to be centered around learning is further evidenced later in the Rockfish Gap Report when he mentions that all religions are placed on the same level, with no one religious sect higher than the next. The College of William & Mary for example, was founded with the intention that the Christian faith would be central to students and learning. The Royal Charter contains several phrases such as "by the grace of God" and "our well-beloved in Christ" that clearly state the intended role of religion in the College. I find the fact that Jefferson did not choose a church for the central building to be quite advanced for the time and view it as a positive step towards further separating church and state.

The founders wanted the location of the University to have meaning and be selected wisely, not distastefully thrown to the highest bidder in an auction. However, what does this say about African Americans who were enslaved at the University? Many of the slaves who worked on grounds were on loan from local owners, and were part of a system in which they were historically "pledged" to the highest bidder. The founders did not want the University to be part of an auction, but they were supportive of the system that auctions off humans as labor and using this labor to build the University.

When I first heard about this report, I thought it was something about fishing cause I had never heard about it nor knew what Rockfish Gap was. Upon further research, I learned that the commissioners of UVA had written this report in a tavern on the top of Rockfish Gap, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The name becomes more meaningful since it is named after a beautiful site in Virginia. When I read other people's comments and annotations, I had thought that they named it after a tavern, but the truth to the matter is that they named it after the area in which the tavern was located. A part of Virginia, which as stated later in the report, the central place for the University. The University was created for the people of Virginia so what better than to name the report after a beautiful place within Virginia.

These lines show the racism the University was built on. Upon constructing the university, the board acted on benefiting the white population. By the establishment of the university, we see a little insight as to why there was tension when it comes to the admittance of the first black students on the university.

This goes hand in hand with the Declaration of Independence when it says, "All men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights." It's evident that equal rights were very important to Thomas Jefferson, after the ill treatment of the American colonies by the British. In his university, he did not want students to feel like they were being controlled and treated unfairly. I also found this statement somewhat ironic. Earlier in the Rockfish Gap Report, it stated that when searching for a plot of land to build the university on, its centrality to the white population of the state was critical. This goes against the statement I highlighted here, because this one is highlighting the importance of equal rights, while the statement about the location of the university being central to the white population highlights only the rights of white men. I guess what Jefferson meant here was that any students should not have their rights violated, and at this time, the only students were white.

In the Individual and Society class, we have discussed how morality is relative to the society in which we live. Encountering this sentence at first, I believed it to be hypocritical, as it implied that the University of Virginia will teach students to improve their morals, yet only sentences earlier the report was planning the university's location based off of the white population. We have to consider these statements (and to a greater extent Thomas Jefferson) in the society of the time they were written. In modern times, these statements are racist and hypocritical, yet at the time of UVA's founding, racism was so rampant in society that that it was not collectively considered immoral.This allowed the writers of the Rockfish Gap to believe that a school could exclude minorities and promote morality without hypocrisy.

This sentence implies that education is only for the white population. It also about only the state population, so maybe they aren't interested in non-Virginians. We didn't know this about UVA and we think it would be good for the administration to acknowledge the university's racist past more explicitly. Some of the lectures are talking about UVA's history, and this would havebeen a good resource.