I always find it interesting the power a signature holds. By signing one's name, they are agreeing with everything stated in the document and pledging their support. I love how it takes the time to emphasize "each in his proper handwriting" as if that is bringing even more validity to their signatures. It is proving the authenticity of this document. All of the document's credibility lies in these signatures.

This is a direct example of exclusion within the University. One of the explicit objectives of the University was to instruct men. It is sad to think that it wasn't until 1969 ( http://uvamagazine.org/articles/women_at_the_university_of_virginia/P7/ ) that UVA allowed women to join the University. Women have accomplished so many things at UVA and because of UVA, and it is hard to imagine what the school would look like without women in it today. Unfortunately, it is expected that a statement such as that would be put in this document, as women's rights were not something being talked about. I just find it shocking that it took UVA so long to begin admitting women.

I find it interesting that because the founders could not justify building a hospital, they deemed it unnecessary to have multiple professors teaching in the medical field, as if teaching medicine was less important simply because there was no hospital. I also think it reflects the founders' favoritism towards the classics. Earlier in the document, it is stated that some of the most important goals of the University was to teach morals and politics and history and then, at the bottom of the list, was the objective of teaching the physical sciences. I'm not sure if the order to which the objectives were listed has meaning, I suppose that is up for individual interpretation, but if it does, it would, perhaps, show the founders' favoritism towards the humanities. However that is interpreted, it is clear that at the time the founders were not entirely concerned with the study of medicine as they only proposed one professor for the field all together. This is a link that shows that the UVA hospital was not built until many years later. https://uvahealth.com/about/health-system-info/history

I find the detail and specificity of this sentence to be interesting. One of the hopes of the University was that the students would not just complete their classical learning, but critically complete their classical learning. And not by just studying authors, but by studying authors of the highest degree. The tone that this sentence sets through the use of its words conveys a University that thrives on independent thinking and intellectual curiosity. It is creating the prestige of the University by making it clear that students will be taught and learn from those of great intellectual capacity and those of the highest degrees. It's not just education that matters to the University, it's education of the highest quality.

I think the use of pronouns in this document is something worth noting. The pronoun 'him' in this sentence is referring to the gender of the professor who will teach medicine and anatomy. The implied gender of the professor was male, because at that time, there were only male professors, along with only male students. This document is concerned with creating the best school possible that will allow its students to intellectually and academically thrive, but by prohibiting women to join the University as professors or students, the school is hindering its ability to intellectual thrive by cutting itself off from the perspectives and ideas offered by women. In 1963, UVA welcomed their first female full professor, and to this day a plethora of women teach at the University. However, most University programs report to have fewer female faculty representation than male representation, so equal gender representation is something we are still working on. http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2016/04/a-gender-gap-in-faculty-salaries