The Virginia Belles, dressed in black, sang a moving, mournful version of “I’ll Stand by You” Friday morning as the University of Virginia’s “Day of Dialogue” began with lyrics instead.
The women’s a cappella group sang the same song at a campus memorial for Yeardley Love last May, days after the U.Va. women’s lacrosse player died in her off-campus apartment. George Huguely, her one-time boyfriend and a men’s lacrosse player, is charged with murder.
Newly installed U.Va. president Teresa A. Sullivan asked students, faculty and staff to use Friday as a daylong time for quiet reflection and open conversation about how best to confront the global problems of domestic violence and personal responsibility.
“In a very real sense, we are picking up where we left off last May,” Sullivan said after the Belles and a men’s group reprised their songs from the student-led memorial.
After the gathering at Old Cabell, discussions were held at various venues around campus. Facilitators selected from the top ranks of U.Va. faculty guided the discussions, which were not open to the media. Classes were not canceled but professors were encouraged to fit the themes of the day in their classes.
“We live in a broken world and we’re not going to fix it in the next six hours,” Sullivan said. “What we can do is to begin to develop a common language for talking about these issues. It’s not so much a day for solutions as a day for questions.”
She spoke in Old Cabell Hall, a building at one end of the the Lawn, centerpiece of Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village. At the other end is the historic Rotunda, its columns veiled in sheer black fabric for the last week to represent the community’s shared experience of grief and loss.
Sullivan noted that seven U.Va. students died during the last academic year. Some died in accidents that may not have been preventable, she said, but “particularly in situations in which students were victims of violence, we wonder if we might have done something, or said something, or somehow intervened to alter the circumstances and prevent the terrible outcomes.”
A student-led initiative called “Let’s Get Grounded” was also introduced Friday. It seeks to train students and others on campus how to watch for trouble signs in relationships and what to do when such signs are observed.
Sullivan spoke for 15 ½ minutes. In a news conference following her address, Sullivan was asked how she would be able to tell if the day were a success. She said there will be no easy metric to tell. But she said confronting these issues is a place to start.
The topic for the morning dialogues was “Am I my sister’s/brother’s keeper?” For the afternoon session, the topic was “Are we a caring community?” Sullivan said the point was to begin with personal responsibility and move to collective responsibility.
Comments
There are no comments for this article yet. Begin the discussion below!
Leave a Comment