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Visiting the University of Virginia
UVA's Central Grounds- Thought by some to be the most beautiful college campus in the world. No visit is complete without touring UVA's famous Lawn. Designed by Thomas Jefferson as the heart of his "Academical Village," the Lawn has as its centerpiece Jefferson's Rotunda. Free guided tours of the Rotunda and Lawn are available for anyone to enjoy throughout the year with the exception of Thanksgiving break, the three-week vacation in December/January, the final exam period during the first three weeks of May, and during the summer. Once school resumes in the fall, tour times are 10am, 11am, 2pm, 3pm, and 4pm, and the groups meet just inside the Rotunda entrance. Call 924-7969 for more information or 982-3200 for information about admission tours, also available throughout the year.

"Mr. Jefferson" lived to see UVA open in the summer of 1825; it burned to its brick shell in 1895, "restored" by architect Stanford White, and restored again to Jefferson's essential design in time for the American Bicentennial in 1976. The tours of the Rotunda and Lawn include a peek at Edgar Allan Poe's room, #13, of course.

After taking in the sights of Central Grounds, be sure to take a self-guided tour of the more secluded Gardens behind the Lawn's pavilions, many of which still house faculty and their families. Romance-ready, they're popular among the student body as the place to woo (and sometimes to wed) a Hoo.

UVA Sports
Back when it was a Virginia gentleman's college, UVA sports were probably a lot of fun, but the national rankings were few and far between. Now, things are so big that UVA spent $100 million to expand its football stadium's capacity to more than 60,000, plus another $130 million for a new 15,000 seat basketball arena. As is evident on UVA's popular official fan website, virginiasports.com, many other Wahoo athletic teams have also established themselves as some of the premier college programs in America, including consistantly dominant men's and woman's lacrosse and soccer teams. UVA's so hot now there's even an unofficial site: thesabre.com.
Ticket office: 800-542-UVA1 (8821) or 924-UVA1 (8821)

-->>Check out more in our Sports and Recreation section.

Getting there- You're in luck if you're staying at a downtown hotel because you can walk or take the CTS free trolley which looks like a San Francisco cable car but travels on rubber tires between The Corner, Jefferson Park Avenue, and Downtown every 15 minutes from 6:45am until 11:30pm every day except Sunday. 296-RIDE

Parking- Enjoying UVA is easy once you've found a map and a place to park. Parking decks are at 14th Street, on Emmet Street, under the bookstore by Mem Gym, and at the UVA hospital. If nothing's available in any of the lots, your best bet is to check the paid lots in and around the Corner, or look for on-street parking.

The Corner- At this enclave of shops, bars, and restaurants surrounding the University, parking is tighter than anywhere else in town, but the streetscapes are lively, and the shops are eclectic. Something for everyone at all hours of the day (and night).

UVA decision-makers
The Board of Visitors- The most plum appointments a governor can make, BOV choices create great excitement and hand-wringing. (Last brouhaha, however, came in 1990 with then-Governor Douglas Wilder's appointment of Patricia Kluge.) They serve four-year terms.

W. Heywood Fralin, Rector, Roanoke
Daniel R. Abramson, Alexandria
A. Macdonald Caputo, Greenwich, CT
Alan A. Diamonstein, Newport News
Susan Y. (Syd) Dorsey, Mechanicsville
Thomas F. Farrell, II, Richmond
Helen Dragas, Virginia Beach
Glynn D. Key, Washington, D.C.
Austin Ligon, Manakin-Sabot
Vincent J. Mastracco Jr., Norfolk
Lewis F. Payne, Charlottesville
Don R. Pippin, Norton
Robert D. Hardie, Charlottesville
Warren M. Thompson, Vienna
Edwin Darracott Vaughan Jr., M.D., New York, NY
John O. Wynne, Vice Rector, Virginia Beach
Adom Getachew, Student Member, Charlottesville

The President: John Casteen
The day-to-day honcho: Leonard Sandridge

State funding?
Sure, UVA is ostensibly a public university, but the state's contribution is a mere 8.2 percent of the University budget in Fiscal Year 2008. The rest comes mostly from revenue from the UVA Health System, tuition, and assorted grants.

Bigger, but better?
UVA has had a clear objective as of late: growth, in every sense of the word. Acceptance rates, tuition, fees, and buildings have all been soaring skyward.

Wee Hoos
The school enrolled approximately 3260 first-year students in fall of '07-- part of a plan to increase total enrollment by 1,500 over the next six years. The average member of the Class of 2011 had an SAT score between 1280 and 1490 and finished in the top 10 percent of his or her class. The in-state/out-of-state ratio will remain the same, approximately 2-1. 

Money Matters
In-state tuition & fees for 2007-2008: $8,690; $16,015 includes room and board
Out-of-state t&f 07-08: $27,490; $34,815 includes room and board

AccessUVa, a program created in 2004 to convert many loans to grants, was expanded last year, increasing its budget to nearly $20 million. This expansion means undergraduate students with family incomes less than or equal to 200 percent of the federal poverty level can have their demonstrated financial need met without loans or a work-study requirement.

Scuffling over the South Lawn Project

In April 2006, UVA approved preliminary designs for the South Lawn's $105 million phase I project, as executed by Moore Rubel Yudell, the firm that replaced the decidedly modernist Polshek Partnership, whose ultimately rejected design had been commissioned in 2001.

The new design is ambitious and modern in its layout, requiring the demolition of several older UVA buildings (though New Cabell Hall is safe), extending the Lawn over JPA on an elaborate terrace (and restoring the view that Old Cabell Hall interrupts), but, sure enough, it also includes familiar pergolas and red-brick columned exteriors that noticeably mimic "Jeffersonian" architecture in the same way the Darden School and the new Jones Paul Jones arena do.

"Polshek really tried with their design," says UVA architecture grad John Rubel, the new lead architect on the project, "but I don't think it came across too well to the conservative folks."

At over $160 million, the South Lawn project is UVA's big production number, a sequel of sorts to the long-running success of Jefferson's Lawn, and it appears that UVA's suits weren't interesting in trucking with some newfangled design.

In addition to its modernist exterior, Rubel says that Polshek's design was spread over too large an area, creating many site problems. His job, he says, was to use Polshek's basic concept but scale it down and come up with a workable design.

Not surprisingly, UVA architect David Neuman steers the discussion away from architecture almost entirely.

"In any campus planning," says Neuman, "it's about the site first, about site planning and landscaping, and then it's about architecture. When it gets turned around, then we get in trouble."

As Neuman points out, "People don't realize that Jefferson was thinking about site orientation first before he even designed the buildings. The site planning of the lawn is great, and we're trying to follow the same site planning process as Jefferson."

Hmm. We could be wrong, but we don't think we've heard the last from the futurists.

If you'd like to to keep tabs on the South Lawn project yourself, UVA has a webcam up on its website from atop New Cabell Hall, looking across Jefferson Park Avenue.

HookTip
If thoughts of UVA make you all warm and fuzzy inside, you may want to rent the gorgeous University Chapel for that warmest and fuzziest day of your life, your wedding day. It's $100 for current students, $200 for faculty, staff and alumni, and $500 for the general public. Crucial Saturdays book up way far in advance, so you'd better plan ahead! To make a reservation, call Newcomb Hall at 924-3203.

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