5 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2017
    1. Certainly not with the Alphabet for reasons of expediency & impracticability,

      Universities thrive on competition. As much as we'd like to say we don't compete here at UVA, competition does make us better. We worked hard to gain access to this University and we continue to work hard in order to excel in the job search after college. This sentence is the start of that competition. It shows that UVA would not accept just anyone and this is in the roots of the University. This allowed for the beginning of a competitive nature that makes UVA students excel among other Universities.

    2. Medicine, when fully taught, is usually subdivided into several professorships, but this cannot well be without the accessory of an hospital, where the student can have the benefit of attending clinical lectures & of assisting at operations of surgery.

      I think it was very wise of the founders to approach medicine in this way. When dealing with such a complex profession, one can not be too careful in making sure the very best for the job are put into the medical workforce. People in the medicine industry legitimately carry the lives of other people in their hands as a job and that should not be taken lightly. Instead of trying to do too much and offer too much to the students of the University, the authors of this document were wise enough to know that they were not in a place to open a fully developed medical program. They make it clear that they have hopes to create a more extensive program in the future, but accept the fact that they are not equipped at the moment. It shows a sense of maturity and that they really analyzed what they were able to provide at this university.

  2. Oct 2017
    1. we have proposed no professor of Divinity;

      In my engagement, we have been analyzing the New Testament and whether it should be used in making ethical decisions. I think it's very important that UVA is not a religiously affiliated school. It allows for a more diverse group of people and therefore a better learning experience. If my engagement was filled with students who all supported and fully followed the New Testament, there wouldn't be much to discuss. Because we all come from different religious backgrounds and can contribute to conversations in different ways, we learn more about the world around us then if we were stuck in an institution with one religion.

    2. the incalculable advantage of training up able counsellors to administer the affairs of our Country in all its departments, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, and to bear their proper share in the councils of Our National Government; nothing, more than education, adorning the prosperity, the power and the happiness of a nation.

      I think this passage is extremely significant. The University was hoping to train and educated young people so that they could then go on to lead and run our country. They wanted the most educated people to help shape society because they hoped this University would give them good morals and teach them valuable lessons. I think this is ironic due to the fact that the majority of politicians working in the government have very corrupt morals. A lot of the people working in these offices lied their way to the top in an attempt to gain power. It's no surprise that our government has corruption in it. I think that if all Universities strove to really educate their students on good moral and values, we may try to prevent this corruption and obviously the authors of this document agree and tried to help create a government that would be beneficial to the country as a whole. Maybe we will be the generation to follow out their desires.

    3. It was the degree of centrality to the white population of the state which alone then constituted the important point of comparison between these places:

      Putting aside the fact that it is absurd that the main necessity in a location for the university was to be in the middle of the white population, it surprised me that they'd even want the University to be so close to the white population. In my mind, college is a time to get away from what you know and to experience life on your own. Many students want to go as far from home as possible when attending college or at least far enough to have a fresh start and figure out their own path in life. So why then did the authors of this document wish to be in the center of the population they desired to attend their school? I'm not trying to draw away from the fact that they were only focused on white students and how racist that recruitment is, but if I were establishing the University, I would put the location away from the population I was trying to get to attend; this would draw them in and offer new experiences that they otherwise did not have in their hometowns. The probable reason they made this mistake is because they were too focused on race. It's sad that they were so focused on recruiting white people that they may have actually hurt their chances of recruiting that population or hindered the possibility of the students experiencing new environments. It just shows that their obsession with providing higher education to white students and not people of color is extremely problematic and ethically immoral even if the times were different than they are now. There were people back then who weren't racist so I think it is unfair to give people an excuse because of the time period.