In the spirit of whimsy, miscellany, and other words ending in y-sounds, I have decided to blatantly copy The Cavalier Daily managing board's occasional lead editorial and present to you: "U.Va. by the numbers."
I highly recommend you take notes. These little tidbits of historical goodness could be the perfect icebreaker for that next awkward conversation with a professor, or perhaps even that surefire pickup line you've been looking for.
Then again, perhaps not.
295,000: Dollars spent to build the Rotunda and Academical Village.
206: Columns on the Lawn.
7: Number of professors at U.Va. when it opened in March of 1825.
3: Number of original U.Va. professors who were American citizens.
15: Dollars paid by students in 1826 for room and board for one year.
2,000: Pounds, which is the estimated weight of the Thomas Jefferson statue on the second floor of the Rotunda.
580: Dollars paid by the University to purchase a slave named Louis Commodore in 1832. U.Va. is the only public University to have purchased a slave.
11: Students who died during outbreaks of typhoid fever from 1856-58.
33: Number of students in the Washington Society who voted yes to the question, "In case of the election of Lincoln, should the Southern states secede?" (November 3, 1860).
6: Number of students who voted no.
46: Students still taking classes at the University in 1862, once the Southern states had seceded.
1893: Years AD when "The Good Old Song" was written to celebrate the winning football team, including a second verse: "We come from old Virginia / Where all is mirth and glee / Let's all join hands and give a yell / For the team of ninety-three."
56,733: Books present in the Rotunda library before the October 1895 fire.
11,691: Number of books students saved before the Rotunda Dome collapsed.
1,600: Total enrollment in the fall of 1920.
26: Faculty members who left their teaching positions to fight in the First World War.
20: Percentage by which faculty salaries dropped during the Great Depression.
0: Faculty laid off during the Great Depression.
1: Cows placed on the roof of the Rotunda as a practical joke (May, 1965)
1,765: Dollars spent by Albemarle County officials trying to figure out who put a cow on top of the Rotunda.
1,765: Dollars paid to Albemarle County officials in November 1997, for their efforts by Alfred R. Berkeley III, former president of NASDAQ and U.Va. prankster, circa 1965
68: Students arrested during an anti-
Vietnam protest on the Lawn in May 1970.
420: Women admitted in 1970 as members of the University's first coeducational class.
1,756: Women admitted in the class of 2009.
18,000: People who greeted Queen Elizabeth II when she visited U.Va. in July 1976.
3: Things Jefferson wanted inscribed on his tombstone: "Author of the Declaration of Independence," "Author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom," and "Father of the University of Virginia."
Daniel's column runs biweekly on Wednesdays. He can be reached at danyoung@cavalierdaily.com.
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