There is little doubt that on the surface, the University boasts those stereotypical elements of Southern culture -- a large proportion of the student body combines the words "you" and "all" to manufacture the quintessential "y'all," seersucker pants are a positive fashion statement and the Confederacy's capital, Richmond, is merely 70 miles away. A closer look shows, however, that the "Southernness" of the University has various interpretations by the members of the student body and the faculty.
Grace Hale, an associate history professor focusing on Southern U.S. History and a Georgia native, said there are bound to be differing opinions amongst the students and the faculty based on where they come from.
"It's a very cultural question," Hale said. "Stepping away from the University, there is the culture. People who are not from the South tend to think that everything is very different here. For example for a student from the Mid-Atlantic, U.Va. is a whole new world. But there's a disjuncture between that and what the Deep South students think."
First-year College student Johnny Winn, who is from France, said coming to Virginia was quite an eye-opening experience.
"When I came here, I found it very, very southern. It was a complete culture shock for me," Winn said. "I mean, they have grits in the dining halls, and that only exists in the South."
Unlike Winn, third-year College student Russell Morrison from Mississippi said he does not find the University to be entrenched in the Southern culture.
"Well, when you think about other schools like Ole Miss, comparatively speaking, [the University] is not southern," Morrison said. "Charlottesville is geographically under the Mason-Dixon Line, but, culturally, you can't say the same thing."
The Mason-Dixon Line is symbolically the cultural boundary between the Northern and Southern parts of the United States, branding the states below the line as traditionally Southern. If one considers such a proclamation to be true, then statistically the University is very much a Southern school. According to the University's Institutional Assessment and Studies report on the geographic origins of undergraduate students, approximately 10,000 out of 12,860 students, or 78 percent, are from those states below the Mason-Dixon Line -- almost 9,000 of them being from Virginia.
Morrison commented on how the make-up of the student body affected the general feel of a college.
"A large portion of the school's from Northern Virginia, and No.Va. is not southern," he said. "Now, W&L is a southern school. It is one of those schools that receive a lot of people from Southern states, and that makes a difference."
Hale said that she also finds there to be a disproportional regional representation amongst the faculty.
"The faculty that I know, who are in the humanities departments, are usually not from the South," she said. "For example, there are two or three of us [who are from the South] in the History department."
Hale also said she finds it very challenging to define those norms that create the Southern culture.
"It is a very difficult thing to point your finger at -- being southern," Hale said. "Usually, though, I find there to be two important notions that define what is historically the South -- history of racism and integration between blacks and whites, and the constitution of ideas and qualities like hospitality. There seems to be an idea that a slower pace of life is quite Southern, but then Atlanta is a booming metropolis."
Some students said the Southern hospitality indeed makes up a big part of what they think of as the Southern culture.
"Southern culture for me is a lot of things, but most importantly, it's the Southern charm and friendliness," third-year College student Minoo Sobhani from Texas said. "I think it becomes apparent when you visit northern cities, such as New York City, that people in the South definitely have much more hospitality. They also smile a lot more at people they don't know."
As a northerner from New York, first-year College student Permele Doyle said she believes the generalization that people from the South are nicer and more polite holds true at the University.
"People really do smile at you when you are walking down the street here," Doyle said. "Especially after living in New York City this summer, I was very suspicious why people were so nice. I figured it was the Southern way."
Doyle also pointed out she has noticed there to be distinct racial relations at the University that differentiate it from some Northern universities.
"I think this school is much more segregated than some other schools like NYU or Brown," Doyle said. "Self-segregation amongst students does tend to be an issue here that is not so much seen up north, I think."
Hale said she relates the recent racial problems on Grounds to the overall historical challenges of the South regarding racial integration that have left their mark at the University.
"When people talk about the South, they don't only talk of the present but of the past as well," Hale said. "So when a racial slur is written on someone's board at U.Va., it is important to think about the history of a Charlottesville which closed its public schools rather than integrating them. So, if we accept difficult relations between races as Southern, I think you can still see its effects here. But on the positive side, it was the undergraduates of U.Va. who protested against segregation and pushed the administration towards integration in the 60s and 70s."
Sobhani also said she sees influences of the South's history over the University's present race relations.
"I think U.Va. is definitely a Southern institution as, for the most part, racial lines are pretty clear," Sobhani said. "For example, generally in the Greek community, the different sororities and fraternities are broken up by race."
On the role of the Greek system on Grounds, Winn said he finds it to be very much a consequence of the Southern culture at work.
"There are a lot of frats who are all-Virginian, and then there are those frats who only let kids in from below the Mason-Dixon line," he said.
Morrison said that although he agrees there are very Southern houses on Grounds, he finds the University's Greek system to be much less overwhelming than it is on some Southern college campuses.
"At Ole Miss the Greek system is the most important social outlet," Morrison said. "Everything is surrounded around the Greek system. There's like [an] exodus for girls if they don't get into a sorority. Here, it's like 30 percent Greeks versus 85 percent at more southern schools."
Hale also said she finds the argument that the Greek system is associated with being Southern to be true.
"There is certainly something to the argument in associating Greek life with Southern campuses," Hale said. "When I was at the University of Georgia, the Kappa Alpha fraternity had a cannon on their front yard and would wear Confederate uniforms at times. But I think [Greek life's] importance has diminished recently here at U.Va. My perception is that it is not the center of social life anymore. I think when you were only letting in white men from a certain class, the Greek system had a much more important role than it does now when the student body is much more diverse."
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