University of Virginia Library

Birdwood: Two Views

With the exception of the Lawn and
Ranges—where the architecture alone
continues to suggest the genius of Thomas
Jefferson's original plan for a total
living-learning environment—little remains in
today's University which even remotely
resembles a true residential college. Now, with
70 per cent of the student body commuting
daily from off-Grounds housing, a mixed
picture of the future is unfolding: if only in
embryonic form, the idea of new residential
colleges helps, at least in part, to offset the
bleak prospect of an expanding, fragmented
and depersonalized megaversity.

In May the University announced plans to
construct six such colleges—to house, instruct
and feed some 3,000 to 5,000 students—at
Birdwood, a 550-acre tract west of the central
Grounds acquired several years ago. Until this
week, formal planning had been largely
restricted to a subcommittee of the
Committee on the Future of the University,
but in recent days two additional sources of
opinion and conceptual input have surfaced.
While often contradictory in their
assumptions and proposals, the two polemical
contributions promise to raise fundamental
issues concerning the nature of a residential
college and what it should be.

The first—a lengthy and imaginative set of
ideas entitled "Thinking About Birdwood"—is
the work of Charles Vandersee, an associate
professor of English and an assistant dean of
the College. Mr. Vandersee's approach
amounts to a free-wheeling but highly
coherent body of speculation on the
possibilities presented by the original
Birdwood plan. His thoughts go a long way
toward producing a concrete set of proposals,
where before no one seemed to have
progressed beyond the stage of hazy
imaginings. Although Mr. Vandersee stresses
that in no way does he mean to be dogmatic
about his ideas, he is to be commended for
producing an image tangible enough to draw
response or even spirited reaction.

Essentially, Mr. Vandersee envisions a
residential college at Birdwood with enough
intrinsic appeal as to be a self-sufficient and
largely self-contained enterprise. So large is
the scope of his thinking, and so edifying the
substance of his proposal, that The Cavalier
Daily has received permission to serialize the
piece in the coming weeks. No summary at
this time would provide an adequate exegesis.
Read the series and you will see what we
mean.

Next, there was the report of the Student
Council's subcommittee on Birdwood
Development. Though clearly a formidable
document representing considerable research,
the report opens on a rather negative note:
first, the geographical and "psychological
isolation" of Birdwood are cited, and indeed
the fundamental assumption that Birdwood is
the best location for a residential college is
called into question. The report labels
Birdwood as a "dangerous" area for future
development because, the committee argues,
its expandability threatens one day to
overrun the residential colleges with exactly
the sort of unbridled growth which now
endangers the central Grounds.

Instead, the Council's committee proposes
that consideration be given to locating the
colleges on the Duke tract, a parcel of
land—much smaller than Birdwood—located
more nearly adjacent to the Grounds proper.
The Duke tract is already the projected site of
a new Law School and Graduate Business
School, although construction on those
facilities has yet to begin. The
report—including in its proposal a system of
mass public transit—stresses the need for easy
access to and from the central Grounds.

In terms of expandability, the Duke tract
is more appealing to the committee precisely
because it is the smaller of the two.
Birdwood, planners have said, could
potentially hold room for as many as 18,000
students in the distant future, while the Duke
tract, once the graduate facilities there are
finished, could only accommodate 3,000
undergraduates. Hence, the colleges—if built
on the latter—would not be subject to
expansion once completed.

There are a variety of questions raised in a
comparative appraisal of the two documents:
basic issues involving academic functions,
educational theory and architectural planning
are introduced even in a glance at the two
views. Their emergence this week—and the
discussion which will inevitably and
necessarily follow—is important to all who are
in any way concerned with the University's
future.