University of Virginia suspends tours that had come under fire for mentioning Thomas Jefferson's ties to slavery

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought our UVA tour was awkward. We walked by one set of dorms, saw the inside of one building, then spent the rest of the time standing on the Lawn while the guide talked about how racist the community was. Learned very little about the school. The strangest tour we had.

You forgot the part where we had to acknowledge the indigenous people whose land we were trodding upon.

Why didn’t you want to acknowledge the land?

Because it’s meaningless, performative BS.

It’s triggering you to have a conversation.

Not PP but there was no conversation. We were all told to be silent.

You’re talking about it now.

Nope. Still talking college tours. Welcome to the conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought our UVA tour was awkward. We walked by one set of dorms, saw the inside of one building, then spent the rest of the time standing on the Lawn while the guide talked about how racist the community was. Learned very little about the school. The strangest tour we had.

You forgot the part where we had to acknowledge the indigenous people whose land we were trodding upon.

Ours required a moment of silence. People in the tour looked so confused.

Sounds like a few rogue student guides. Not our experience at all.

? It’s literally in the news that UVA adjusted their tours. I highly doubt it was a few rogue guides. Either way, my child isn’t applying. Damage done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not “mention,” it’s “entire focus” of the tour.

Big difference. I am sure the kinds of tours provided at Mount Vernon, which are comprehensive but not agenda- driven woke, will still be given at uva

The “agenda” of acknowledging slavery and fighting racism?

Right. Neither should appear on the agenda when one adult shows another adult the present-day features of a school.

Perseverating on Sally Hemmings 400 years ago does not "fight racism" today. And like PP said, "acknowledging" something from 400 years ago is performative bullshit, because there isn't a high school student in the northern hemisphere who is unaware that slavery occurred.

Have you been an a UVa tour or gone to UVa? The entire place absolutely basks in its history. Like swims in it, like almost no other place. So for many it feels absolutely fake to talk about Jefferson and Edgar Allen Poe and all the hospital stuff and not mention slavery.

"Mention" ?? and integrate the topic logically and succintly into a broader discussion of history? Sounds great. Focus on this subject during the limited tour hour to the exclusion of pragmatic topics that parents/teens actually need to know in order to select a college? No. Not the forum.

I posted above about Mount Vernon, which has similar history to contend with. IMO they get it just right, in a respectful and appropriately-sized way.

The pragmatic topics always got short shrift in UVa tours. The issue is everyone was okay with it when it was about praising the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought our UVA tour was awkward. We walked by one set of dorms, saw the inside of one building, then spent the rest of the time standing on the Lawn while the guide talked about how racist the community was. Learned very little about the school. The strangest tour we had.

You forgot the part where we had to acknowledge the indigenous people whose land we were trodding upon.

Ours required a moment of silence. People in the tour looked so confused.

Sounds like a few rogue student guides. Not our experience at all.

? It’s literally in the news that UVA adjusted their tours. I highly doubt it was a few rogue guides. Either way, my child isn’t applying. Damage done.

Whatever will they do without your child?

[Anonymous]

Interesting from UVA Cavalier Daily.

https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2024/08/u-va-suspends-admissions-tours-led-by-the-university-guides-service

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We also had a bad tour. Total turn off. We enjoyed most of our college tours but UVA was not good.

Same. I have a lot of kids and have literally been on dozens of college tours. UVA was by far the worst.
The guide seemed straight up dumb. Every single sentence ended in “uh” and “um”…combined with vocal fry and upspeak.

+1
This was also our experience. What I find interesting is that no one is even discussing the fact that the student guides aren't even bothering to show up for their scheduled tours. What kind of person doesn't show up for their JOB - volunteer or paid? How rude and irresponsible.
NP

[Anonymous]

I think this was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Literally everyone I've talked to that has done tours there has said they were terrible. One person said the tour is what turned her kid off of UVA - and they are a double alumni family! Tours should come out of an admissions office, not just some random group of students who have zero guidelines to adhere to. It sounds like it was just time for them to stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought our UVA tour was awkward. We walked by one set of dorms, saw the inside of one building, then spent the rest of the time standing on the Lawn while the guide talked about how racist the community was. Learned very little about the school. The strangest tour we had.

You forgot the part where we had to acknowledge the indigenous people whose land we were trodding upon.

Ours required a moment of silence. People in the tour looked so confused.

Sounds like a few rogue student guides. Not our experience at all.

I think that has been the problem with the tours - there ARE no standards. There is no script. There's nothing to go rogue off of. Really awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting from UVA Cavalier Daily.

https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2024/08/u-va-suspends-admissions-tours-led-by-the-university-guides-service

Just amazing that this group of student guides thinks they have the authority to turn a college tour into a lecture on racism. Very glad they've been shut down for now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting from UVA Cavalier Daily.

https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2024/08/u-va-suspends-admissions-tours-led-by-the-university-guides-service

Just amazing that this group of student guides thinks they have the authority to turn a college tour into a lecture on racism. Very glad they've been shut down for now.

This!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought our UVA tour was awkward. We walked by one set of dorms, saw the inside of one building, then spent the rest of the time standing on the Lawn while the guide talked about how racist the community was. Learned very little about the school. The strangest tour we had.

You forgot the part where we had to acknowledge the indigenous people whose land we were trodding upon.

Why didn’t you want to acknowledge the land?

Because it’s meaningless, performative BS.

It’s triggering you to have a conversation.

Not PP but there was no conversation. We were all told to be silent.

You’re talking about it now.

Nope. Still talking college tours. Welcome to the conversation.

"You forgot the part where we had to acknowledge the indigenous people whose land we were trodding upon."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a Guide in the early 90s. As was my husband. His brother. His brother's wife. The Guardians of our children should anything happen to us. We've helped fund a scholarship at UVA to honor our Guide friend who past away. I could go on and on. The University Guide Service has meant a lot to me -- and still does.

This is a change a long time coming and while I am sad it came to this, it had to be done. This isn't some antiwokeness or whatever. I cannot stand Youngkin, but it isn't his fault. The UGS lost their way. They needed a change. I'm hopeful that there will be something better to come.

Most recently, the Admissions office has been training Guides to do the Admissions tours. We took our DS this spring and it was a good tour - I would have liked more history and such - but there's a lot to cram in and we thought she did a great job and I even got teary at the end (full disclosure, although we were randomly assigned a Guide after the admissions session, turns out we knew her. Her Dad had been a Guide with us, her Aunt was a Guide, her Uncle...you get the idea).

We were very hesitant to allow our kid to even go on a tour because the stories for years had been horrible - from both former Guide parents to friends with no previous ties to UVA. I've been following along some of the many issues on a Facebook site for Guide alums and have been so disheartened to see what had become of a very special (to me) organization. As one alum put it -- it used to be a group of students who were very interested in telling the stories of the University, and had a lot of fun along the way too. Now it's more of a social club which takes out their angst on unsuspecting tourists and perspective students.

It pains me to see what has happened but they needed to be stopped. Perhaps Admissions should be in charge of Admissions tours, but hopefuly the UGS will pull it together and be allowed once more to give Historical tours of the amazing UNESCO World Heritage side that I got to know and love.

Isn't this one of the current criticisms? That it's become an exclusive club to be accepted, where "who you know" is more important than "what you know?"

Sigh. Sorry, I was not clear. We took a tour with someone from the admissions office. Not the University guide service. That’s why the tour was actually good.

Back in the 90s, it was not easy to get into and in fact it didn’t necessarily help that you had friends. We literally called people FOGs - Friends of Guides. That meant, you might hang out with the guides and go to parties and such. But you still had to get into the Guide service on your own merits.

But I have heard recently it is super chummy and if you’re friends with guides you can get in more easily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a Guide in the early 90s. As was my husband. His brother. His brother's wife. The Guardians of our children should anything happen to us. We've helped fund a scholarship at UVA to honor our Guide friend who past away. I could go on and on. The University Guide Service has meant a lot to me -- and still does.

This is a change a long time coming and while I am sad it came to this, it had to be done. This isn't some antiwokeness or whatever. I cannot stand Youngkin, but it isn't his fault. The UGS lost their way. They needed a change. I'm hopeful that there will be something better to come.

Most recently, the Admissions office has been training Guides to do the Admissions tours. We took our DS this spring and it was a good tour - I would have liked more history and such - but there's a lot to cram in and we thought she did a great job and I even got teary at the end (full disclosure, although we were randomly assigned a Guide after the admissions session, turns out we knew her. Her Dad had been a Guide with us, her Aunt was a Guide, her Uncle...you get the idea).

We were very hesitant to allow our kid to even go on a tour because the stories for years had been horrible - from both former Guide parents to friends with no previous ties to UVA. I've been following along some of the many issues on a Facebook site for Guide alums and have been so disheartened to see what had become of a very special (to me) organization. As one alum put it -- it used to be a group of students who were very interested in telling the stories of the University, and had a lot of fun along the way too. Now it's more of a social club which takes out their angst on unsuspecting tourists and perspective students.

It pains me to see what has happened but they needed to be stopped. Perhaps Admissions should be in charge of Admissions tours, but hopefuly the UGS will pull it together and be allowed once more to give Historical tours of the amazing UNESCO World Heritage side that I got to know and love.

Isn't this one of the current criticisms? That it's become an exclusive club to be accepted, where "who you know" is more important than "what you know?"

I was at UVA in the mid 90s and the Guides had an exclusive club vibe then too. In the 90s the school didn’t spend much time acknowledging the complicated nature of TJ owning slaves and Sally Hemmings in particular. I feel like much of the current climate is a direct result of people at The University (cough, cough) refusing to acknowledge any historical unpleasantness for so long. Maybe it’s tipped too far in one direction but this comes after decades and decades of being too far in the other direction.

Agree. The pendulum has swung too far the other way from not recognizing any of this to only recognizing this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought our UVA tour was awkward. We walked by one set of dorms, saw the inside of one building, then spent the rest of the time standing on the Lawn while the guide talked about how racist the community was. Learned very little about the school. The strangest tour we had.

You forgot the part where we had to acknowledge the indigenous people whose land we were trodding upon.

Why didn’t you want to acknowledge the land?

Performative.
And who are you acknowledging it to? Yourselves? Each other? With the point of what?—atonement? Forgiveness? Acknowledgment that you are benefitting from these evils of people you didn’t know pushing people you also didn’t know off of land that may or may not have belonged to them after THeY pushed other tribes off of the land? Super weird American practice.
Our history is so so young.
Are you really sorry that this happened?
If it hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t have your iPhone that you used to type out your outrage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought our UVA tour was awkward. We walked by one set of dorms, saw the inside of one building, then spent the rest of the time standing on the Lawn while the guide talked about how racist the community was. Learned very little about the school. The strangest tour we had.

You forgot the part where we had to acknowledge the indigenous people whose land we were trodding upon.

Why didn’t you want to acknowledge the land?

Performative.
And who are you acknowledging it to? Yourselves? Each other? With the point of what?—atonement? Forgiveness? Acknowledgment that you are benefitting from these evils of people you didn’t know pushing people you also didn’t know off of land that may or may not have belonged to them after THeY pushed other tribes off of the land? Super weird American practice.
Our history is so so young.
Are you really sorry that this happened?
If it hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t have your iPhone that you used to type out your outrage.

Would you rather be ignorant?