UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

William Bennett, Associate Professor of Sculpture

“Fayerweather Hall was originally built as a gymnasium. It was a world-class gymnasium for its time, which was the mid-eighteenth century.

“But when we were there, it had now become an art studio, or a bunch of art studios, and a bunch of offices for historians. We were all together in one building. Sculptors making a lot of noise, historians slamming the doors.

“The early years, I remember them fondly. And alumni who come back remember Fayerweather Hall with great love and affection. It was a wonderful, old, funky, quirky space.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Martha Sites, Acting University Dean of Libraries

“The libraries also have a wonderful Special Collections library. People don’t often known about the riches and treasures there.

“We do have people who come from across the world to see some of the things that are in that library. But looking at those things, there’s nothing like seeing books that were from hundreds of years ago and knowing that people that we’ve read and heard about was just very special.

“And to see the reactions of people for whom a particular author or a particular treasure, I mean, you would see them tear up sometimes at being able to get their hands on some of these items.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Martha Sites, Acting University Dean of Libraries

“You know, by the time I came to the library, the card catalog was already online. And it was evidently quite a disaster in that there was a lot of negative faculty reaction.

“Nevertheless, the only books that were available online were those that the Electronic Tech Center was marking up. So that when you access them online, you could get to keywords, you get to parts of the book, et cetera.

“It turned out that was quite a laborious process, but it was groundbreaking in that nobody else was doing this. So that was a boon to our reputation in the digital world and lasted for many, many years.”

This week we sit down with Charlottesville Tomorrow to discuss primary results, plus an interview with University of Virginia Associate Professor of Education, Michael Lyons.

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Jess Wenger, Environmental Projects Manager, Facilities Management

“This was definitely a group of people who were just fun to hang around, and did not fit any stereotype of UVa at all.

“I graduated from undergrad in 2004. I participated in CAINE which at the time was an anime and manga club.

“So it was a little locked library in the bowels of Newcomb Hall and they had meetings once a week and you had to show up and, like, check out material and things like that, because it was stuff back then that was really hard to find and the regular library here didn’t carry any of it, so we had our own little collection and we had a tiny little budget and every year people would vie to be like, ‘Oh, we need to buy this book this year.’ ‘No, I want to buy this movie instead.’

“So it was me and a bunch of kind of geeky guys, but yeah, it was a fun group.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Ken Elzinga, Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics

“People who think I'm gifted at speaking to large groups are not people who know me well at all.

“I am now in my 51st year on the faculty at the University of Virginia. When I started here, I was asked by my chairman if I would teach this large class.

I think there were about 600 students.

“I'm a very shy person. I don't like to be in front of large groups. However, I didn’t realize I had a choice in this. I began teaching Principles of Microeconomics.

“And literally for years, I would be sick to my stomach before going in to teach Econ 201. But the pattern was set that I would be teaching semester, after semester, after semester, and I have now done that for north of 45,000 students here at UVa.

“If you took Econ 201, chances are you took it with me.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Judith Shatin, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music

“You asked for some history about the Virginia Center for Computer Music, so here goes.

“My dear colleague in sociology, Steve Nock, and I were chatting one day, and he mentioned that there were funds to bring computing into departments. And my ears perked up and I said, Oh, really?

“Because I had had some experience with computer music while I was a graduate student at Princeton, but at that time computer music was much more difficult. We had mainframe computers, we had to type onto cardboard notecards. Huge stacks, go to the engineering school in the middle of the night. And besides which, I never created anything I was excited to hear.

“But I always knew that somewhere down the line, this was going to change.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Judith Shatin, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music

“I think that it is extremely important there continues to be a focus on integrating liberal arts and sciences, and not just STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics] without that kind of integration.

“Because it is through creative and critical thinking, knowledge of the world, that blended with scientific purpose and skill, that we will be able to move forward in a way that still supports democratic ideals. And I am very concerned that at the moment there is such a strong push toward STEM, and support of STEM over support of traditional liberal arts and/or the study of the arts. So to me, that is something that I think there should be a lot of caution about.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Judith Shatin, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music

“The gender balance has changed over time. I have been the only full-time tenured composition faculty who is a woman, up to this point.

“This is not in the least surprising. In fact, I remember some years ago I was asked to do a keynote on the teaching of composition in the academy. And so I went to the College Music Society’s listings, but I was rather surprised that no one had done any record keeping of gender or diversity applicants or faculty.

“Many universities had zero women teaching in composition. There’s still a great imbalance. However, I think we are seeing change in that over time.”

UVA's Bicentennial Stories initiative from WTJU 91.1 FM tells our collective story. It helps us understand our shared history and make meaning in the University today. And as we look ahead, these stories help us shape the future of the University and our role in a democratic society.

Judith Shatin, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music

“I do indeed have a very wide sense of sounds that can be used in music, and that can be heard as musical.

“So for instance, one project that I have embarked on is called Quotidian Music, and the first piece is called Tape Music. I went into the studio and recorded myself ripping and messing with different types of tape: duct tape, scotch tape, and paper tape, and electric tape. I took what is an item that we frequently throw away, but conversely we can sometimes use to mend things, like a torn letter or what have you.

“So I like the idea of using sounds from the everyday that we don’t necessarily pay attention to that can be repurposed for music.”