- Oct 2017
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engagements2017-18.as.virginia.edu engagements2017-18.as.virginia.edu
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It will form the first link in the Chain of an historical review of our language through all its successive changes to the present day, will constitute the foundation of that critical instruction in it, which ought to be found in a Seminary of general learning
It is particularly noteworthy that the authors thought to use Anglo Saxon to teach about the development of language over time. Since this was the language spoken by most of the prospective students, tracking its changing history would provide an engaging demonstration of the dynamic nature of language. In other words, by using Anglo Saxon, students would be able to identity their own contemporary role in the timeline of an always developing language. Having this knowledge, students would (perhaps unconsciously) attain an understanding of how all art, not just language, can change meaning over time. This could help students in time grasp the developments occurring to their university which is, in many ways, a work of art in itself.
-Joe S.
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To enlighten them with mathematical and physical sciences which advance the arts & administer to the health, the subsistence & comforts of human life:
I believe this sentence very accurately characterizes the intentions and the foundations of the New College Curriculum; The New College seeks to provide students with a core knowledge of the arts (especially how they are applied in our society) that can be further strengthened and complemented in studies of math and science should students so choose in the future. This sort of foundation, outlined in both the document and the mission of the New Curriculum, is important because it can allow students to examine a wide range of academic fields before studying concrete methods of applying those fields practically. Since I am taking the Art: Inside/Out Engagement, I also sought to interpret this sentence in taking "arts" literally to mean art in its various expressive forms. In this way, this sentence helps develop the important concept that art and maths/sciences in no way exist in conflict with each other; while many believe these two subjects to be on opposite sides of an academic spectrum, this section of the Rockfish Gap Report helps to remind that art and science can freely interact and engage with each other to work for the benefit of both.
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We should be far too from the discouraging persuasion, that man is fixed, by the law of his nature, at a given point: that his improvement is a chimæra, and the hope delusive of rendering ourselves wiser, happier or better than our forefathers were. As well might it be urged that the wild & uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour & bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better: yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable both in kind & degree. Education, in like manner engrafts a new man on the native stock, & improves what in his nature was vicious & perverse, into qualities of virtue and social worth; and it cannot be but that each generation succeeding to the knowledge acquired by all those who preceded it, adding to it their own acquisitions & discoveries, and handing the mass down for successive & constant accumulation, must advance the knowledge & well-being of mankind: not infinitely, as some have said, but indefinitely, and to a term which no one can fix or foresee
It is interesting to see the purposeful imagery the authors used for this passage. They first liken the students of UVA to a chimaera, a being composed of multiple animals, showing they intend to have us as students adapt and evolve during our time here rather than to remain a static character. The writers then go on to mention a tree that has been engrafted, much like a chimaera may take on new animals the tree takes on new fruits. This is what the founders of UVA wanted, but rather than fruits and animals, they wanted to do this with education and I feel this visual analogy serves well in that purpose.
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- Sep 2017
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engagements2017-18.as.virginia.edu engagements2017-18.as.virginia.edu
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that of proposing a plan for its buildings; and they are of opinion that it should consist of distinct houses or pavilions, arranged at proper distances on each side of a lawn of a proper breadth, & of indefinite extent in one direction at least, in each of which should be a lecturing room with from two to four apartments for the accommodation of a professor and his family: that these pavilions should be united by a range of Dormitories, sufficient each for the accommodation of two students only, this provision being deemed advantageous to morals, to order, & to uninterrupted study; and that a passage of some kind under cover from the weather should give a communication along the whole range
The planning and design of the lawn shows care for its aesthetic nature. The pavilions were to be set with a specific symmetry and to be linked to each other by student housing. This layout is then mirrored for the other side of the lawn and set with no real limit for its expansion. This exemplifies what the founders of UVA thought about this venture into education, limitless. The proximity between students and teacher signifies a sort of journey one must take in their academic journey, and that this specific road may never end as everyone continually grows.
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