University of Virginia Library

Diagnosis: 'Culture Is Alive But Deathly Ill'

By TERI TOWE

After three years as a law student at the
University of Virginia, I'm leaving with one distinct
impression of the community as a whole. I am
appalled by the indifference this town and this
University in particular show towards all things
cultural.

The indifference has been apparent on many
fronts; it affects music, the fine arts, architecture, and
the library. The University of Virginia holds itself out
as a major university and cultural center, and yet it
consistently drags its feet on any expenditure for arts
or for culture.

For example, the University is ready, willing, and
able to spend a small fortune to renovate Scott
Stadium so that a bunch of alumni and
undergraduates can use it a few Saturdays in the fall
to watch a mediocre football team and get falling
down drunk. Yet, the University was extremely
hesitant to allocate less than $100,000 to renovate
the Bayly Museum which had been converted into an
adjunct to the Architecture School at a time when
University Hall was a higher priority than a new
School of Architecture.

The community's attitude towards the arts is
much the same. A group of artists in Charlottesville
has established a co-operative gallery; already those of
us who are supporting members have received a
mailing asking us to solicit memberships from our
friends in the town and on the Grounds since the
number of members of the 2nd Street Gallery is
nowhere near as great as it should be for a town of
this size and alleged prestige. So like Charlottesville, it
talks a good cultural scene, but the minute money is
required, most of the wealthy in this town are too
busy hunting foxes and beagling to sit down and
write checks.

The Rotunda restoration and the plight of
McIntire Amphitheater are further examples of the
prevailing cultural indifference. The University is
going through with a restoration plan that will saddle
the community and the nation with an architectural
bastardization – neither Thomas Jefferson's original
plan nor Stanford White's grand Victorian reworking.

As for the Amphitheater, the administration does
its level best to discourage any constructive use of the
building so as to justify its decision to level this

unique building and replace it with some egregious
and ugly building, in all likelihood a parking garage
for the administration and its bureaucratic minions.

And what about the library? Had it not been for a
miraculous fluke in the House of Burgesses – I'm
sorry, the Legislature – Edgar Shannon might have
been freed to go along with the promise he has said
publicly on more than one occasion that he made in
order to get the funds for the new Law School. The
promise? That Clark Hall become the undergraduate
library when the new Law School has been
completed. So like the Legislature.

Its members are willing to allow the ruination
of Green Springs but were unwilling to allo te funds
for an adequate undergraduate library until Senator
Stone, for once in his career, decided to do one thing
right, even though it is part of his attempt to ruin Mr.
Jefferson's dream of a great University drawing its
students from the entire nation.

And lastly music. Yes, what about music? The
Artist Series is the only major concert series of any
major state university that does not receive a subsidy
of any kind. John Herring works wonders, but not
even he can produce a great series every year without
the kind of financial support which this University
refuses to provide.

The Tuesday Evening Concert Series' hands are
tied, too. The audience here lacks the commitment to
support that series to the extent it deserves. Come to
think of it, what should I expect? The audiences are,
by and large, rude and inconsiderate; they come to
see and be seen "soaking up" culture, wander around
the lobby during intermission looking important, and
leave before the second half begins. Where else but
Charlottesville can one find a full professor, who is a
musician, who could be so rude as to talk through an
entire concert because he didn't like the music?

Even though I disagree with many of their
policies, Margaret Forbes and the other members of
the TECS board have earned my thanks for fighting
the good fight.

Yes, Culture is alive but deathly ill in
Charlottesville. I leave you with a paraphrase of Mme.
Roland's last words before mounting the steps to the
guillotine– Ah, Culture, what crimes are committed
in thy name!