I like that he referred to the students as citizens. This shows how Thomas Jefferson truly thought he was creating a community rather than a school. Also, these students had rights and interests that the University should uphold and these are constantly being tested today. As students, we should question if the University is giving is the rights we all deserve. Also important to note that he said men as women were not yet part of the school. I wonder if UVa had trouble outlining women's rights here as men's rights were established first. -Ella S. (es4vr)

The fact that Ethics was one of the main areas of study that Thomas Jefferson thought of shows how much he valued a liberal arts education. Also shown throughout the document, he really wanted the University to be a community. I wonder if he thought there was a direct relationship between creating a community and ethics. In my Engaged Citizenship class we discussed how now we believe that ethics and citizenship (or being part of community) go hand in hand and we do see that aspect a lot at UVa. TJ may have thought about this first simply with creating a community who should value studying ethics. -Ella S. (es4vr)

I like this quote because this is an example of how we can use our positive fundamental historical beliefs to fight against our negative history. Education is extremely value and UVa is constantly trying to expand knowledge, especially shown through this New Curriculum. Through expanding knowledge and education to help form our morals, we can learn to balance our controversial history with recent events and fight to be a culturally aware and genuinely progressive University. If students are aware and knowledgable, there's so much a student body can do to progress out society. -Ella S.

Even in our formation of the University, we believed higher education meant supremacy. When UVa didn't allow black people into the school, we believed we were superior and they weren't allowed to have the higher education we have. Even now when we look at demographics, the minority percentage is so low, it seems as if we still follow this superiority complex of education for white people. -Ella S.