When the first students arrive at new residence halls on Brandon Avenue next summer, they’ll move in to buildings that carry the names of two professors whose lives were entwined with some of the struggles of the mid-20th century.
“It is the custom at the university to name residence halls after esteemed faculty members,” says Colette Sheehy, senior vice president for operations and state government relations at UVA.
Historian Paul Gaston taught at the University of Virginia for four decades and helped create the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies. In 1963, Gaston was among the people beaten for staging a sit-in at Buddy’s Restaurant to protest the establishment’s refusal to serve Black customers. The owner would close the building four years later rather than desegregate. UVA tore down the structure and an adjacent gas station in late 2011 as part of its expansion.
Gaston died in 2019 at the age of 91.
Rouhollah “Ruhi” Ramazani and his wife fled persecution in Iran in 1952, and eventually arrived in Charlottesville where he received a law degree in 1954. He taught at UVA until 1998 and served as an adviser to former president Jimmy Carter during the Iran hostage crisis. Ramazani died in 2016.
There will be around 350 beds in the two structures that make up the second student living space to be built in the Brandon Avenue corridor. The first new residence hall built there was named for Julian Bond, the late civil rights champion who was a professor in UVA’s history department for two decades before his death in 2015.
The University of Virginia Foundation gradually purchased the land for the corridor’s expansion, the same way land on Ivy Road has been purchased to support UVA’s physical growth. The Board of Visitors’ Buildings and Grounds Committee signed off on the names of Gaston House and Ramazani House last week. They also cleared the way for more buildings on Ivy Road to be demolished to make way for the Karsh Institute of Democracy.
The namings come at a time when other educational facilities in the community are in the process of re-examining namesakes.
Several Albemarle schools have new names, such as Journey Middle School for the facility that honored Jack Jouett. The names Broadus Wood, Greer, and Murray remain on elementary schools, but the county dropped Meriwether Lewis and Paul Cale.
Earlier this year, Charlottesville renamed Clark and Venable Summit Elementary and Trailblazer Elementary, respectively. When $90 million of renovation and additions at the lone middle school are complete in 2025, the building will carry the name of the city, after the school board voted unanimously on this in June.
“This recommendation follows the current trend to move away from school names that honor individuals,” says city schools Superintendent Dr Royal Gurley.
UVA is currently in the midst of a planning study for an initiative to have enough space to house all second-years on Grounds. It has set aside $7 million for planning efforts.