Students around the country chose to refrain from talking Wednesday in order to draw attention to problems faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. University alumna Maria Pulzetti founded this "Day of Silence" in 1996 while she was an undergraduate in Charlottesville.
The program was a success that year and has spread across the entire country. Event organizers say over 1,600 high schools and colleges participated in the event this year.
Yet, the University was not one of the participants this year, despite being the place of its origin.
Third-year Architecture student Matt Pecori, president of the University's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Union, said he and other officers of the group discussed participating but decided against it and no members told him they should participate.
"Even people who had participated before did not say they were upset we did not participate," he said.
Pecori said one reason for the low interest may be increasing acceptance of homosexuals at the University.
"I don't think things are great, but I don't think people think things are so bad that they need to inconvenience themselves by being silent for an entire day," he said.
He added that he felt non-participation by the University was not a negative, but instead a positive since it shows that treatment of gays at the University has increased in recent years.
But Pecori said the fact that the program began at the University does make it look bad for the LGBTU not to have participated.
Fourth-year College student Kate Ranson-Walsh, former president of the LGBTU, said participating in the Day of Silence requires a lot of resources. But she said she felt it was important to educate other students about problems homosexual students face.
She added that while current leadership could have used the Day of Silence for education purposes, the fact that Pecori spoke at last night's Take Back the Night about domestic violence within the gay community showed education still was a priority for current leadership.
However, Ranson-Walsh said she feels that by not participating in the Day of Silence, students may forget that it ever happened here, much less that it was founded here.
"I'm of the last class of people who knew" the founder, said Ranson-Walsh, who was a first year when Pulzetti graduated.
The Day of Silence currently has more participants within high schools. High school students comprise 80 percent of participants.
Students do not speak during the entire school day and pass out cards to classmates explaining their actions are meant to protest the treatment of homosexual students.
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