Author: Cara Salpini

As excited fourth-years take their final walk on the Lawn and up the portico steps of the recently refurbished Rotunda, they will no doubt be reflecting on their years at the University of Virginia. Just in the last school year, UVA has made headlines for scientific discoveries, Olympic athletes who have roamed Grounds, and improving sexual assault-prevention practices following the infamous now-retracted Rolling Stone article. As a nod to the class of 2016, we chat with a brother-and-sister pair who are both graduating, a fourth-year who is crossing off items on the 116 Things to Do Before Your Graduate list, a retiring professor who has amassed a collection of found objects in his office and a professor who has taught at UVA for four decades and says he will miss students the most. We also talked to fourth-year Martese Johnson about what’s next for him and how he views his time at the university after his altercation with ABC agents.

Fourth-year attempts to cross everything off her list

Fourth-year Elyse McMillen, a chemical engineering major, decided during her second year at UVA to try to accomplish the near-impossible: Finish the notorious “Things to Do Before You Graduate” list. Being a 2016 graduate, McMillen was tasked with 116 things (each school year another number is added), and she completed 104 by early May. Of the 12 she has left, four will be completed by the time she graduates. Some of the remaining eight are now out of reach, such as snowtubing at Wintergreen, but McMillen hopes to knock off just a couple more before she graduates. To anyone hoping to complete the list, McMillen has one piece of advice: “Take the opportunities as they come because a lot of times you don’t have a second chance.”

Even though McMillen won’t finish the entire list before she graduates, she’s glad she had the chance to experience so much at UVA. “Honestly, I can go down each of these and think of a story for each one.”

Favorite items on the list

Hug Ms. Kathy in Newcomb (Ms. Kathy swipes students’ cards as they enter Newcomb Dining Hall). “I just love that that’s on here.”

Build a snowman on the Lawn. “I’m from Colorado, so snow is sort of my thing.”

Drive up Skyline Drive. “It’s a wonderful drive, so I’m glad that’s on there because people need to do that.”

Just her luck

Nab the No. 1 ticket at Bodo’s. “I got lucky with that one because I worked as part of a research team during the summer of first year and what time we went into the lab was dependent on the cell cycle. So one morning when we had to get up early, we just got up and went to Bodo’s and got the first ticket. There was one other group who came after us and when they saw us they just kind of shrugged and then walked away, but other than that it was pretty quiet. I definitely still have the ticket in a journal somewhere as a pride thing.”

Witness a probate. “I was studying in the Rotunda and a probate just happened outside. They’re pretty secret, so I got super lucky.”

Watch the sunset from the top floor of Culbreth Parking Garage. “I did that by happenstance. I was meeting someone there and they told me to go to the parking garage and I had never been there before and the sun happened to be setting while I was there, so I watched it.”

Siblings share the stage on graduation weekend

Most siblings share the same address growing up, but not many can say they shared an address in college. Even fewer can say that that address was in UVA’s most prestigious living quarters. But third-year graduate student Kyle Gardiner and his younger sister, Gillian, a fourth-year in the College of Arts and Sciences, are the exception.

Gillian and Kyle both live in Jefferson’s original student quarters, the Lawn and the Range respectively, just one street over from each other—and you’ll find the number 33 on both their doors.

According to Gillian, the choice of Lawn Room 33 was not intentional, despite her brother occupying 33 West Range. But for Kyle, the story was slightly different.

“You want to talk about annoying things I had to do for my sister,” Kyle says, explaining that Gillian was abroad when she got accepted to the Lawn. “I had to scout out a lot of rooms on the Lawn and see what she would like…33 was one of the only rooms still left of the best rooms on the Lawn. So that compared with the fact that I had room 33 made it too good of a story not to pick.”

Kyle does admit, though, there are major benefits to attending the same college as one of your siblings.

“We have different types of meal plans, so she can give me access on the weekends at the dining hall. Plus, whenever my parents come to give her something, they’ll bring something for me or vice versa. There are lots of utilitarian benefits,” Kyle says.

Gillian agrees, saying she loves being able to just walk over and hang out with her brother some nights. That doesn’t stop her from finding faults with him, though.

“Because he’s so outgoing, a lot of my friends end up meeting him before they meet me. So I’ll constantly be hearing, ‘Oh, you’re Kyle’s sister,’” Gillian says, something she’s been used to since childhood. “And then when I got into UVA and Kyle came a year later, I was like, finally, things will be turned around and my friends will be saying that to him instead! But it’s still the same way and I still get asked if I’m Kyle’s sister from people I meet.”

Since the Lawn and the Range are such competitive housing areas, both Gillian and Kyle boast an impressive résumé. Gillian is not only majoring in linguistics, minoring in Italian and following the pre-med track, but she is also a member of club soccer and UVA’s co-ed service fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega.

Not to be outdone, Kyle is getting a double masters, with a Master of Public Policy from the Batten School and a Master of Urban and Environmental Planning from the School of Architecture, as well as participating in the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society and volunteering at a local fire station. Their busy lives don’t stop them from indulging in some good-natured sibling rivalry, though.

“…for the first two or three years here he’s been claiming that he’ll be graduating from grad school before I graduate from college,” Gillian says.

Unfortunately for Kyle, his younger sister has him beat—Gillian is set to walk the Lawn on May 21 while he graduates on May 22. This one might sting for a bit.

Collecting decades of memories

Baseballs? Yes. The occasional soccer ball? Sure. You’ll even find an entire pile of glittery objects. But you won’t find more than five or so books on professor Paul Barolsky’s office bookshelf. Barolsky, who has taught at UVA since 1969, says the found-objects exhibit was the result of approximately five years of collecting abandoned items.

“You’ll notice an installation of umbrellas,” Barolsky says as he discusses the wall. “They were left in the classroom and no one came to claim them. So after two or three weeks they became art.”

Barolsky and a former colleague named the collection “Trash and Treasures in Charlottesville,” but Barolsky laughingly admits that when he leaves the office in a month it will most likely become trash.

The growing collection of neglected objects in Barolsky’s office isn’t the only thing that’s changed over the years, though. When Barolsky first began teaching a Renaissance survey lecture at UVA in 1969, the university wasn’t even co-ed.

“The ‘gentlemen,’ as they were called, wore ties and jackets to class,” Barolsky says. “It was a very different place. The culture of the university changed very, very, rapidly in the early ’70s—it was quite an exciting time.”

You won’t see college students walking to class in suits and ties anymore, but Barolsky still teaches the Renaissance survey course that got him hired 47 years ago. While he’s dabbled in courses on Greek art and literature, as well as other art history subjects, the Renaissance survey holds a special place for Barolsky, along with a fourth-year seminar on Ovid and the works that he has inspired.

“Students have done some remarkable things [in that class],” Barolsky says. “Way before formatting was easy, a student did a parody of the Cav Daily with all the articles about Ovid. [The students at UVA] are very playful, they’re very witty and they’re very informed.”

The works of Ovid have been a particular focus of Barolsky’s academic life as well, where he’s produced some of his favorite work. After his retirement this year, Barolsky plans to continue writing essays to get his remaining ideas on paper.

“Most academics are obsessive, and I’m no exception,” he says. “You finish writing one [book] and you start the next one. …It’s as if you’re writing one book and the particular books that come along are almost like chapters in that one big book.”

Although Barolsky looks forward to continuing his work in Charlottesville, he says he’ll miss the “high” of teaching at the university as well as the great work his students have produced.

“Teaching art history is a privileged experience, make no mistake,” Barolsky says. “It takes very enthusiastic talent and students. What can be better than that? What luck that I happened to be there when Frederick Hartt was looking for someone to replace him in the Renaissance survey course.”

Creating lifelong connections with students

“He gets a green tea,” an employee calls as 75-year-old professor James Childress stands in front of the cashier. “No extra ice this time,” Childress replies, clearly familiar with the employees from his frequent visits to the Starbucks on the first floor of Nau Hall.

It’s not just the baristas who recognize Childress. Undergrad and grad students alike shout a quick hello to the professor as they walk by his table, and he cheerfully responds to each one with an individual greeting.

Charismatic and playful, Childress, who has taught at UVA for 44 years and is retiring this spring, likes to joke that he “didn’t know Jefferson well.” Since his first year at UVA in 1968, Childress estimates he’s taught more than 19,000 students and says he loved teaching at the university from the start.

“There’s something about it,” Childress says of UVA. “I do love the place. It’s not a perfect place, but it was small enough that I could really work with people from all over the university and I’ve had really good students that I’ve had a great time teaching, and that’s been a lot of fun.”

Childress teaches in three different departments at UVA, serving as the John Allen Hollingsworth professor of ethics, and teaching as a professor in the Department of Religious Studies and the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and focusing on bioethics as a professor of medical education in the School of Medicine.

Even professors have favorites, though, and Childress names a lecture class called “Theology Ethics and Medicine” and a seminar on “Just War and Pacifism” as his favorite courses to teach.

“I had 30 students in 1979 and now I have over 300,” Childress says of his lecture course. “There’s a communal part, and I very much enjoy working with TAs.”

In addition to his impact at the university level, Childress will leave behind a legacy outside the classroom as well. Among other things, Childress was a member of President Bill Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission, where he dealt with issues of stem cell research and cloning, as with Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal. He presented his findings in the Rose Garden of the White House.

“President Clinton gave us 90 days to prepare a report about what the federal government should be doing about cloning. That meant we needed to consult all sorts of scientists and also people in religious studies and other areas about a topic that is really more of a matter of science fiction,” Childress says. “But if you can clone sheep, you can clone people.”

Childress says one of his fondest memories at UVA was his time serving as the principal of Brown Residential College alongside his late wife.

“What we enjoyed the most was sitting down for dinner and meeting up with three different groups of students every night. We loved all of the things we would put on at the house,” Childress says.

Childress will retain an office in Charlottesville after his retirement and continue to work with the Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life, but he will no longer teach his staple courses at the university.

“I won’t miss a lot of the committees and the reports,” Childress says as he watches students pass through the Starbucks, “but I will miss the teaching.”

The aftereffects of Jackie

A year and a half since Rolling Stone’s now-retracted “A Rape on Campus” sent shockwaves through the University of Virginia, the school continues to make strides in the way it approaches sexual assault.

Among other things, the university instituted mandatory sexual assault and alcohol training modules last fall for all returning students, as well as introduced an optional Green Dot bystander training program in March 2015. Andrea Press, a professor of media studies and sociology at UVA, says these steps are a great improvement for the school’s sexual assault culture, which she says was “unselfconscious” in the past.

“I think we are in a new era from the one we were in a year and a half ago,” Press says. “Change had begun before the Rolling Stone article—UVA had begun to revise its procedure and its policy. But I think that all of the awareness and the debate helps to make those policies more effective. You can have the policies and not have awareness and if you don’t have awareness, you don’t have people reporting.”

While many of the changes made at UVA as a result of the article are still being instituted, Press stresses the importance of the initial media coverage that “A Rape on Campus” provided for the issue of sexual assault on college campuses.

“It galvanized attention on the plight of sexual assault victims in college and it was really gratifying to see that happen,” Press says. “We had faculty campus-wide meetings, we had protests at frat houses, at parties. We had activist groups formed. It was a moment of great activism among the faculty, and the administration was very supportive of that.”

At the time of the article’s release, both then-Associate Dean of Students Nicole Eramo and the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity came under fire for their alleged involvement in Jackie’s sexual assault and her choice not to press charges. While both have since filed lawsuits against Rolling Stone for their false depiction in the piece, efforts have also been made on UVA’s side to enact changes in Greek life.

In particular, all fraternities involved in the Interfraternity Council agreed to sign the Fraternal Organization Agreement Addendum in September, which proposed certain regulations for future fraternity functions.

Of particular note, the addendum outlined the number of sober brothers necessary for different functions, requiring a sober brother to be present at all sites of alcohol distribution as well as at the stairs to the residential areas of the house during events. The addendum also set regulations for which types of alcohol were allowed to be served to persons of age and by whom, preventing hard liquor from being served unless the fraternity hired a bartender.

Despite these changes to Greek life at UVA, Press still believes the role that fraternities play in sexual assault needs to be looked into further.

“The jury is out on whether frat culture encourages assault,” Press says. “I would like to see fraternity officials and nationwide officials taking this question seriously and investigating it and committing themselves to changing it, and I haven’t quite seen that happen.”

The Interfraternity Council did not respond to C-VILLE Weekly’s request for comment.

As changes continue to be made on UVA’s campus and other college campuses around the nation, Press encourages the university to be “vigilant” in policy changes.

“We want our students to be safe, and we want our students to have an equal opportunity to pursue their education, and right now that doesn’t seem to be the case,” she says.

By the numbers

Students who completed new sexual assault and alcohol training modules: 97%

Employees who underwent Title IX and Clery Act training: 1,000

Additional funding provided by UVA to Green Dot: $60,000

Number of new full-time employees at Counseling and Psychological Services: 4.2

Minimum number of sober brothers required at fraternity functions: 3

Initial number of faculty trained by Green Dot: 71

Initial number of students trained by Green Dot: 62; 88 additional students have been trained since

Martese Johnson talks graduation and changes at UVA

Fourth-year Martese Johnson made headlines last March when the image of his bloody face after being arrested by Alcoholic Beverage Control agents outside Trinity Irish Pub was splashed across national media. On June 12, charges against Johnson were dropped—and the prosecutor decided to not bring charges against ABC agents Jared Miller, John Cielakie and Thomas Custer.

This March, Johnson filed suit for $3 million against the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control: “all of a sudden, and without provocation, Custer and Miller slammed Martese into the brick walkway, face first, causing Martese to suffer a severe laceration to his forehead and scalp,” says the lawsuit.

We spoke with Johnson about his time at UVA, what changes he’s seen as a result of the incident and what the future holds for him.

Have you noticed any changes on Grounds since the incident?

I think the university is far more on alert in regards to incidents of this nature. I think they’re being very reactive in the sense that they’re trying to prevent anything of the sort from happening again. I think the ambassadors are very cognizant of the way they interact with students and conscious of what’s going on. I think the environment in general has become a lot more positive and that people are really aware of their own actions as well as looking out for each other. …I hope that students at UVA keep trying to make this a better environment and a safer environment, and I know that some students are.

What is it like to juggle a lawsuit with all of your schoolwork and still make time to hang out with friends?

I think that it’s definitely a challenging process trying to juggle multiple things at once. …But I also try to find peace in living in the moment, so while it’s been a challenging process, hopefully it will lead to better things for many people, and I enjoy having the opportunity to possibly be a catalyst for some positive change.

What kind of changes would you like to see?

I would love to see, at the university, a stronger black community. I’m not saying the one here isn’t strong, but in the early ’80s and ’90s the black population was 13 or 14 percent and now it’s dwindled to 6 percent. That, coupled with the fact that there aren’t a lot of tenured black faculty at UVA and there’s not a lot of people for us to look up to at UVA, I think that kind of hinders the black experience here.

On a larger scale, there’s so much inequity in America and so a lot of the things I’ve been working on have not been to make changes at the microcosm of UVA, but to enact large-scale change throughout the U.S. We see African-Americans at the bottom of the wealth gap, experiencing the largest effects of wealth inequality. You see how housing disparities have hurt communities of color. In some neighborhoods of color, there aren’t grocery stores. Even the air we breathe in some neighborhoods is toxic. So I think about these larger issues that all tie into inequity in the U.S. and I hope that we can chip away at them and make a better America for everybody.

What are your plans for after college?

I’m gonna be moving to New York City with at least two of my best friends. I’m gonna be doing creative consulting for a firm called Sylvain Labs—a weird kind of consulting that allows us to wear T-shirts in our office. After work every day I’m hoping to work on an entrepreneurial effort as well as hopefully on weekends still be able to travel and speak to people about issues.

What do you still hope to accomplish at UVA before you leave?

Well, I’m working on one really big thing that I can’t really talk about, but I’m hoping to give back to the university in a big way in the very near future. As well as, you know, tie some knots in terms of friendships and relationships. Make sure that when I leave here I’m in the position to come back and still have an impact here, still have relationships—normal graduation stuff. Hopefully in the next few months or so I can do something really nice for the university.

What have been some of your favorite experiences during your time at UVA?

I think that there were three major milestones in my college career that I’m always going to remember and cherish. The first was my sort of public initiation ceremony for my fraternity, and so becoming a member of Kappa Alpha Psi. Second thing was winning a contested university-wide election for the honor committee and sort of breaking down their system of hierarchy by running without being a member of their support pool beforehand. The final thing was being tapped into the IMP Society. I think that was huge for me because it opened my eyes to the fact that you do not have to be the same as someone for them to be a great friend of yours, and I think that our group has exemplified diversity in so many realms and it’s taught me so much about humans and how we’re all such different individuals.

And I’ll miss UVA basketball games, too.

How do you feel about walking the Lawn for final exercises?

I’m hype. I can’t wait until that scaffolding (on the Rotunda) comes down.

Any final words?

A lot of people look at my experience and sort of make it a reason why they shouldn’t come to UVA or why this isn’t a good place for people of color to be, and I disagree with that wholeheartedly. I think that UVA has been imperfect in a lot of ways, but it’s been the perfect experience for me in that it’s helped me grow tremendously in various ways and taught me how to be strong even in the worst moments. It’s also taught me that there are a lot of problems in the world, similar to UVA, but that there are also a lot of ways to make a change.

So I hope that the students who come after me value their time here and cherish the fact that they can come here as a student and create real change in a community that hopefully will matter to them. Wahoowa! Go UVA.

Rebuilding the Rotunda

Driving down University Avenue, you might notice the Rotunda’s usual cluster of scaffolding has decreased considerably. Although the UNESCO World Heritage Site is still under construction, UVA’s design team has completed the majority of its renovations, and the project is on schedule to be finished by August.

The first phase included installing a new oculus and copper roof. The second phase began in spring 2014 and expands classroom space in the Rotunda, increases access and enhances programming options at a cost of roughly $42.5 million.

UVA’s historic preservation architect Jody Lahendro says the changes are meant to reinstate the Rotunda as a center for student life.

“What all of us, and the university design team, hope this project does is to bring students back into the Rotunda to have it become an active part of the daily life of the students, a daily part of the education experience,” Lahendro says.

Much of the exterior will be finished this month, allowing graduates to process up the north portico steps, around the terraces of the Rotunda and down the south portico steps.

In Thomas Jefferson’s original 1821 designs for the Rotunda, the building was meant to be the university’s main library, a natural hub for student activity. When Alderman Library became the main library on grounds in 1938, it slowly shifted student study space outside of the Rotunda.

The renovations to the Rotunda’s interior add several new areas specifically designed for student use.

“We’re opening three new student classrooms, new study spaces, and the hours will be extended for students to use,” Lahendro says. “And we’re enhancing the Dome Room for the students to use as a study space.”

The two-year-long renovations have not been all smooth sailing. Some of the outdoor work on the utilities between the Rotunda and University Avenue caused unexpected trouble.

As part of the second phase, four new utility lines had to be added, running perpendicular to utilities that had been installed as early as the 19th century. Difficulties with installation pushed this part of the project back by six months.

“We found many of the utility lines in different locations than the maps had shown,” Lahendro says. “We had to eventually go underneath all of those existing utilities and when we did that we hit rock.”

Although much of this work was planned to safeguard the historical site, Lahendro stresses again that the students are at the heart of the renovations.

“They are the most important part of this project,” Lahendro says, “Our hope is to make the Rotunda part of the students’ educational experience and get them back in there again.”

Capital project

The capitals, the carved decorative tops on the Rotunda’s white columns, will be replaced—both on the exterior and in the interior of the Dome Rome. Master craftsmen in Italy used surviving fragments and 1870s-era photos to recreate the Rotunda’s original capitals; the latest capitals were installed in the late 19th or early 20th century and were unstable and not weathering well.

The public will now have access to the gallery level in the Dome Rome, which puts them on eye level with the new capitals, created by Richmond-based firm Tektonics Design Group. Made of mahogany, each new capital is constructed of several pieces that allows for more detail, says Tektonics’ Christopher Hildebrand.—Erika Howsare

By the numbers

7 Number of capitals Tektonics is building per month

40 Total capitals in the project

250-300 Hours each capital requires to build

10,000-12,000 Total hours to build all the capitals

5 People hired for the project

2,000 Total parts to complete the job

Headlines from the past year

Two UVA grads to compete in summer olympics

UVA will be represented by at least two of its graduates at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Meghan O’Leary, a Jefferson Scholar who graduated in ’08, was a two-sport Division I athlete in softball and volleyball. After graduating, she worked for ESPN, and she picked up rowing in 2010. In 2013 she left ESPN to pursue rowing fulltime and earned a spot on the U.S. Senior National team that same year. In April, O’Leary and her partner, Ellen Tomek, won the final of the women’s double sculls competition at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Sarasota, Florida, to qualify for the Olympics. She’s the first Jefferson Scholar alum from UVA to do so.

Yannick Kaeser, class of 2016, will make his second appearance at the Olympic Games, swimming the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke for Switzerland. He previously competed in the 2012 games. In his four years at UVA he set two school records, swimming the 100-meter breaststroke in 52:47 and the 200-meter breaststroke in 1:53.72. He logs more than 20 hours a week with nine team practices and three weight-room sessions.

One for the history (WELL, science) books

Researchers at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine made a discovery that could change the treatment of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and autism.

The finding involves the presence of the lymphatic system—the network of vessels that serves as a connection between tissues and the bloodstream and removes dead blood cells and other waste—in the brain, thus connecting the brain to the immune system, and overturning the teaching in decades-old medical textbooks.

“That makes us revisit the way we think of the brain as scientists,” says Antoine Louveau, a postdoctoral fellow in the neuroscience department. Louveau works under Dr. Jonathan Kipnis, the director of UVA’s Center for Brain Immunology and Glia.

Louveau’s findings received massive national attention, including a nomination for Science magazine’s Breakthrough of the Year.

The class of 2016

At this weekend’s final exercises, 6,671 degrees will be awarded:

•  4,016 bachelor degrees (119 of these were earned in three years, three were earned in two years)
• 2,173 graduate degrees, including 296 Ph.Ds, eight Doctor of Education degrees and 15 Doctor of Nursing Practice degrees
• 482 first professional degrees

Faculty inducted into prestigious academy

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences named three faculty members from the University of Virginia to its membership: School of Law professor and psychologist John Monahan, Professor of English Jahan Ramazani, and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor.

They join 33 other UVA scholars elected to the academy, including President Teresa A. Sullivan, who was inducted last year.

UVA fourth-year’s video goes viral

Samuel Reid, a classics major, has taken a photo of himself nearly every day since he was a junior in high school—and no these photos weren’t clogging his Instagram feed. Instead he used the more than 1,100 photos to create a time-lapse, stop-motion video of himself singing Coldplay’s “Life in Technicolor ii.” The video, which received 313,454 views on YouTube as of May 16, went viral and was shown on NBC’s “Today” show.

Highs and lows mark Virginia’s football season

The 2015-2016 season marked the Virginia Cavaliers football team’s 12th consecutive loss against in-state rival Virginia Tech. It was the season the Cavs lost every road game for the third consecutive year. And it was the season Brigham Young University’s Bronco Mendenhall took over as head coach after Mike London’s November 29 resignation.

Despite the team’s losing record, finishing 4-8 in London’s last season, head coach Mendenhall promises change, as he comes off 11 straight winning seasons at BYU. His first rules as coach included stripping players of their jersey numbers and banning Virginia gear, telling his players they need to earn back those privileges.

Of course, you can’t talk about football without talking about the marching band. While the football team was riddled with problems this season, the Cavalier Marching Band fared much better, making a name for itself by appearing in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for the first time in program history.

UVA third-year competes in ‘Jeopardy! College Championship’

Adam Antoszewski, a double major in chemistry and physics, competed against 14 other students whose majors range from literature to integrative biology. His show, in which he went up against Carissa Pekny, a senior at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and Columbia University freshman Emily Sun, aired February 1. Antoszewski was second going into the final Jeopardy! round, in which the clue was, “Teddy Roosevelt called it the one great sight which every American should see (answer: What is The Grand Canyon?). All three contestants wrote the wrong question, with Antoszewski and Pekny both ending up with $0. Sun won the match with $8,999.

Highlights of the Virginia Cavaliers men’s basketball season

Head basketball coach Tony Bennett, in his seventh season with the Cavaliers, led UVA to another record-breaking year in what some fans are calling the best three consecutive seasons since Ralph Sampson played in 1980-1983.

Highlights include 89 wins during the past three years to surpass the 88 garnered in Virginia’s 1981-1983 seasons.

UVA completed its first undefeated season at John Paul Jones Arena since 1981-1982, going 15-0 at home.

In the NCAA tournament, the Virginia Cavaliers reached the Elite Eight for the first time since 1995. The previous two years the team fell to Michigan State in the Sweet 16 and the round of 32, respectively.

Malcolm Brogdon was named ACC Player of the Year and ACC Defensive Player of the Year, becoming the first player to earn both awards in the same season of play.

ESPN’s “College GameDay” came to UVA for the second consecutive year, and the second time in program history. Second-year student Andrew Board banked in a half-court shot during the show to win $18,000.

Undergrads protest Alderman Library renovations

Renovation plans are currently underway for Alderman Library, which opened in 1938, that will update fire suppression systems and solve plumbing and electrical issues in the building. University staff came under fire, however, when undergraduate students began protesting these renovations three months ago.

Led by fourth-year English major Vanessa Braganza, whose petition to Keep the Books in Alderman has amassed more than 600 signatures, students declared their opposition to any renovations that would cause a large-scale removal of books from the library.

While Interim University Librarian Martha Sites assured students that plans were still in the developmental phase for the renovation, she consented that some books would be temporarily removed by necessity to complete the renovation.

Sites will be replaced by John M. Unsworth as university librarian and dean of libraries on June 25.

By the numbers

Volumes in Alderman (including books, documents and serials): 2.5 million

Volumes added per year: 35,000

Seats in Alderman (for studying purposes): 1,447

Estimated cost for necessary renovations: Between $40 million and $100 million

Estimated cost for full renovations (including restoration of certain spaces): $160 million