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: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?

What land in Virginia wasn’t indigenous?

Correct. They are acknowledging that.

Do you expect your grocery store to do this? The metro?

They do in places like Australia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: It is just interesting the extent to which elements of the far left are inventing an almost pseudo religion complete with little prayers.

Yes, VA once belonged to other people, centuries before any of us were born. In that, VA is identical to essentially every other square inch of habitable dirt on earth.

Nobody doing a tour of UVA is going to be unaware that there were people in VA before the English arrived, over 400 years ago, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I….

DP here. I don’t know about that. I look around today and see so many people that can’t agree on things like the earth is round and the moon landing so if you told me someone didn’t think people were in VA before the English arrived I would not be surprised. All it takes is someone to want to gain notoriety by making an outrageous statement and others either start to believe or feel free to admit it and it takes on a life of its own. I’m not even going to get into conspiracy theory alley and some of the things my kids have mentioned is out there on social media that is contrary to what I learned in school as being historical fact….

If for the sake of discussion we supposed there existed a person unaware the English weren’t the first people in VA, what exactly would that have to do with elite college admissions?

[Anonymous]

A couple of positive and negative sentences about the man is fine along with the history of when it was built. After 5 minutes of that you better start talking about the campus life and why I should pay to send my child here. And that goes for any college tour.

[Anonymous]

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.

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?

You seriously think it is in UVA’s interest to have tours that turn kids off from applying? You’re being absurd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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."

Did you miss the post about a moment of silence? Silence isn’t conversation.

[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.

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?

You seriously think it is in UVA’s interest to have tours that turn kids off from applying? You’re being absurd.

For every kid turned off, there are plenty who become more interested, or don’t really care either way. If it really deterred your kid from applying, then it just wasn’t the right school for them. There are thousands upon thousands of others happy to take their place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is part of an ongoing struggle between Jefferson the man and Jefferson the myth.

Acknowledging that UVa has a troubled history is not only important but also shouldn’t have 0 effect on perspective students and their outlook on the university.

If you don’t like history, go complain to Mr Jefferson’s ancestors

Better to go William and Mary then?

What institution in Virginia didn’t have a “troubled history”?

And why should that be the focus of a one hour tour where a student needs to decide among multiple options where to apply to?

[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.

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?

You seriously think it is in UVA’s interest to have tours that turn kids off from applying? You’re being absurd.

For every kid turned off, there are plenty who become more interested, or don’t really care either way. If it really deterred your kid from applying, then it just wasn’t the right school for them. There are thousands upon thousands of others happy to take their place.

lol if that were the case, they wouldn’t be revising the tours.

[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?

What land in Virginia wasn’t indigenous?

Correct. They are acknowledging that.

Do you expect your grocery store to do this? The metro?

They do in places like Australia

Who here is doing college tours in Australia?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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?

You seriously think it is in UVA’s interest to have tours that turn kids off from applying? You’re being absurd.

For every kid turned off, there are plenty who become more interested, or don’t really care either way. If it really deterred your kid from applying, then it just wasn’t the right school for them. There are thousands upon thousands of others happy to take their place.

lol if that were the case, they wouldn’t be revising the tours.

Yeah, their application numbers are clearly hurting.

[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?

What land in Virginia wasn’t indigenous?

Correct. They are acknowledging that.

Do you expect your grocery store to do this? The metro?

They do in places like Australia

Who here is doing college tours in Australia?

It was in response to grocery stores no colleges. Can u read?

[Anonymous]

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.

Really? Seems like a lot of people are pretending like it - and racist policies - never happened.

Look at all of the people fighting racial diversity college admissions.

[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.

Yup. Look at how some alumni love their elitism and random capitalization.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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?

You seriously think it is in UVA’s interest to have tours that turn kids off from applying? You’re being absurd.

For every kid turned off, there are plenty who become more interested, or don’t really care either way. If it really deterred your kid from applying, then it just wasn’t the right school for them. There are thousands upon thousands of others happy to take their place.

lol if that were the case, they wouldn’t be revising the tours.

Yeah, their application numbers are clearly hurting.

Something caused them to change the tours, yes? They didn’t like the results. Open your eyes.

[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?

It is a joke. We don't have to acknowledge it. We conquered it. Do you go to Paris and tell them to acknowledge the previous occupants of the land? What about Delhi? What about Seoul? People have always conquered lands. Get over it.