Why "Unhallowed Walls?"

The name "Unhallowed Walls" derives from a stanza by famed poet and disgraced son of the university, Edgar Allen Poe, who lived in West Range 13 during his short stay as a student. The following lines were etched into the window of his Range Room and now sit preserved in the Rotunda.

"O Thou timid one, let not thy Form rest in slumber within these Unhallowed walls, For herein lies The ghost of an awful crime."

Though his tenure as a student was a short one, in these short lines Poe managed to encapsulate a very important and fundamental idea: The University of Virginia has an overtly complicated history, over 200 years of both great pride and great shame. I think it's every student and faculty members duty to acknowledge its failures while lauding its victories; nothing happens in isolation and every action at the university it built off the shoulders of what came before. Like it's founder, Thomas Jefferson, great men and great institutions can be responsible for terrible, unhallowed crimes, in addition to significant contributions to society and the world. While there have been warranted calls for further action, I've seen UVA make tremendous strides of progress in recent years addressing it's checkered past, a past I plan on discussing extensively in this blog.

I am not an English Literature major and won't try to force meaning onto Poe's poem, but it is hard to ignore the most direct explanation given where it was inscribed. The University of Virginia, particularly its Academical Village, is an institution built off the backs of enslaved laborers and has a long legacy of persecution against minority groups, including people of color and women. I love this university and its unhallowed walls dearly, and it shouldn't lessen that love to acknowledge what it took to get us to where we are today. I look forward to further improvement as we look to another 200 years of progress.