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.

Leonard Sandridge, Former Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

“Oh yeah, it was bleeding edge. I mean, it was bleeding edge. People said this will never work.

“Early in my career, we’d done all of the budget by hand, we typed it all by hand and it took two or three people literally a couple of months to add it all up. I mean, it was a very manual task.

“First computer, we paid $10,000 for one in the budget office. This was the first time that we could print with a computer. It was very complicated. It took all night long to print the budget and then we had to copy it by hand with the Xerox machine. But that was in 1970. The rest is history.”

For more: www.uvastories.org

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.

Leonard Sandridge, Former Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

“Oh yeah, it was bleeding edge. I mean, it was bleeding edge. People said this will never work.

“Early in my career, we’d done all of the budget by hand, we typed it all by hand and it took two or three people literally a couple of months to add it all up. I mean, it was a very manual task.

“First computer, we paid $10,000 for one in the budget office. This was the first time that we could print with a computer. It was very complicated. It took all night long to print the budget and then we had to copy it by hand with the Xerox machine. But that was in 1970. The rest is history.”

For more: www.uvastories.org

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.

Leonard Sandridge, Former Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

“It was a horrible job.

“I started out at the University in 1967. And I remember, I was given a deck of paper about 5 inches high of all the equipment that had been bought on federal grants and contracts for ten years. And I was asked to take that list, go find that equipment and put a label on it.

“I didn't know where I was going. I saw people sometimes when I would go in and mispronounce a word that I'm sure was the name of the equipment, they would be giggling in the corner and telling me it's over there and watch me try to find it. So it was humiliating in some ways.

“About five years later, I realized that that had been one of the most valuable things that ever was. I had been into just about every building on this grounds. And I don't know today that there's another person here that can say that.”

For more: www.uvastories.org

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.

Leonard Sandridge, Former Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

“It was a horrible job.

“I started out at the University in 1967. And I remember, I was given a deck of paper about 5 inches high of all the equipment that had been bought on federal grants and contracts for ten years. And I was asked to take that list, go find that equipment and put a label on it.

“I didn't know where I was going. I saw people sometimes when I would go in and mispronounce a word that I'm sure was the name of the equipment, they would be giggling in the corner and telling me it's over there and watch me try to find it. So it was humiliating in some ways.

“About five years later, I realized that that had been one of the most valuable things that ever was. I had been into just about every building on this grounds. And I don't know today that there's another person here that can say that.”

For more: www.uvastories.org

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.

Lisa Spaar, Professor of English & Creative Writing, and Director of the Creative Writing Program

“That makes me want to segue back, just for a second, to the ‘70s. I was living on 14th Street, and the Dalai Lama was living in town that winter.

“It was the winter of ‘76 and I lived in a house with some friends. He must have had a pied a terre or someplace that he was living also on 14th Street, and was on the same schedule as I was.

“So as I was coming out of my house, he would be coming down 14th Street in his saffron robes and his birkenstocks and his earmuffs. It was a very cold winter, and 14th Street was sort of a sheet of ice. He would bow to me every morning and I would bow to him. It was just one of those magical moments.”

For more: www.uvastories.org

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.

Lisa Spaar, Professor of English & Creative Writing, and Director of the Creative Writing Program

“That makes me want to segue back, just for a second, to the ‘70s. I was living on 14th Street, and the Dalai Lama was living in town that winter.

“It was the winter of ‘76 and I lived in a house with some friends. He must have had a pied a terre or someplace that he was living also on 14th Street, and was on the same schedule as I was.

“So as I was coming out of my house, he would be coming down 14th Street in his saffron robes and his birkenstocks and his earmuffs. It was a very cold winter, and 14th Street was sort of a sheet of ice. He would bow to me every morning and I would bow to him. It was just one of those magical moments.”

For more: www.uvastories.org

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.

Lisa Spaar, Professor of English & Creative Writing, and Director of the Creative Writing Program

“You know, you try to create an environment in which people who want to develop as poets can do so. And that involves just bring to the table lots and lots of good poetry.

“And I think that to demystify the writing process, to make sure that people feel, as William Butler Yeats said, comfortable with their hand. Not to be afraid of writing or making mistakes. To realize that not writing is part of writing; writing badly is part of writing.

“It’s a lifetime thing, this apprenticing of writing of poems. And it’s not like you’re going to go through three years taking a certain number of classes, and it’s Miller time; you’ve got a corporate job and things are figured out.

“You’re always trying to figure it out. And that’s kind of exciting. And maybe more true to the way that life really is.”

For more: www.uvastories.org

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.

Lisa Spaar, Professor of English & Creative Writing, and Director of the Creative Writing Program

“You know, you try to create an environment in which people who want to develop as poets can do so. And that involves just bring to the table lots and lots of good poetry.

“And I think that to demystify the writing process, to make sure that people feel, as William Butler Yeats said, comfortable with their hand. Not to be afraid of writing or making mistakes. To realize that not writing is part of writing; writing badly is part of writing.

“It’s a lifetime thing, this apprenticing of writing of poems. And it’s not like you’re going to go through three years taking a certain number of classes, and it’s Miller time; you’ve got a corporate job and things are figured out.

“You’re always trying to figure it out. And that’s kind of exciting. And maybe more true to the way that life really is.”

For more: www.uvastories.org

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.

Lisa Spaar, Professor of English & Creative Writing, and Director of the Creative Writing Program

“These are old chestnuts, but W.H. Auden said, Poetry makes nothing happen. It’s not propaganda, it’s not a sermon, right? It’s just a deep looking into the complexity of the human heart.

“People talk a lot right now in our moment about ‘woke poetics.’ I think that’s exciting. You know, there are poetries that are very much committed to being responsible. So, certain poets, every time they sit down at the page, they’re sitting down as a trans writer, or they’re sitting down as a person of color.

“I think there’s room at the table for everyone. But I also think that a poem that might not be immediately recognized as political, can be read that way, as a poem coming to us from another human being about the complexities and paradoxes about being human.”

For more: www.uvastories.org

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.

Lisa Spaar, Professor of English & Creative Writing, and Director of the Creative Writing Program

“These are old chestnuts, but W.H. Auden said, Poetry makes nothing happen. It’s not propaganda, it’s not a sermon, right? It’s just a deep looking into the complexity of the human heart.

“People talk a lot right now in our moment about ‘woke poetics.’ I think that’s exciting. You know, there are poetries that are very much committed to being responsible. So, certain poets, every time they sit down at the page, they’re sitting down as a trans writer, or they’re sitting down as a person of color.

“I think there’s room at the table for everyone. But I also think that a poem that might not be immediately recognized as political, can be read that way, as a poem coming to us from another human being about the complexities and paradoxes about being human.”

For more: www.uvastories.org