The University of Virginia is a school steeped in history. Its story is a microcosm of our nation’s past — from its founding by Thomas Jefferson in the 1800s to contemporary student activism, University events have paralleled and enriched national discourses. This makes the University’s story an important one to share. We, the University Guide Service, have taken on that task for 70 years — until the University suspended us a few months ago.
As the leaders of the University Guide Service, we believe that student-led tours are integral to the process of telling the University’s history and that our suspension has only caused harm to both the organization and the University writ large. As such, we are announcing our return to giving historical tours independent of the University administration.
Our organization serves as a powerful representation of student-led history. As a group of approximately 100 student volunteers, we provide both admissions and historical tours. On the historical side, we work diligently to cover the University’s full story. Through our training, we hear from faculty, community members, and students who study our history or have been directly impacted by it. Outside our tours, we work with these groups to promote public history via social media and other educational opportunities. Until recently, we did all this work on behalf of the University.
Starting in July, the University significantly restricted Guides by suspending us from providing tours. There was heavy news coverage of our admissions tour suspension earlier this year, but our historical tours were also suspended. Despite assurances that these suspensions would only last for a semester, the administration has now extended the suspension of historical tours at least until summer 2025. Admissions tours are still on track to return next semester. Perhaps most concerningly, they have yet to present a plan for how, when or if guided historical tours will ever resume.
Before the historical tour suspension, the administration gave no forewarning and only offered an explanation months after an official decision. Even now, their reasoning remains vague, citing the tours’ lack of general “comprehensiveness” — an assessment based on their perspective, not that of a public historian. In contrast, we work with historians to strive for complete retellings of our school’s past. To date, the administration has yet to give any data or evidence to the contrary.
In the absence of any real justification, we can only see this suspension as a reaction to the anti-history voices who have long been attacking our organization. This loud minority has put continuous pressure on the University to curtail our touring responsibilities — and it seems that is just what happened.
Regardless of the cause, this suspension is a disservice to the University community. On our tours, history becomes a conversation. We strive to meet visitors where they are and ask them to consider new historical perspectives. We welcome questions and accept that guests may challenge us as we challenge them. This process looks different on every tour, whether it is for an elementary school class or a group of professors. But a core principle remains the same — we search for comprehensive historical understandings through in-person, open conversation with guests. Shutting down these tours stifles open discourse in a way that damages the contemporary community and the act of producing, contesting and engaging with history.
As we look to any future with the administration, we have serious doubts about their ability to oversee us after these actions. One of the University’s top priorities is maintaining a positive image. This interest often conflicts with the University’s goal of telling an authentic history, a tension that ultimately caused administrators to enact this unfounded suspension. Our experience tells us that heavy administrative oversight will hamper tour guides' ability to tell this authentic history.
We recognize that UGS always has room for improvement. That is why we invite everyone to interact with our organization as we return. Please go on our tours, give us feedback and think of what you want out of public history. What the administration has failed to fully realize is that suspending our tours does not encourage us to grow — it only curtails this process of organizational growth and development.
Going forward, we need to know that administrators will preserve the elements of authentically student-led tours — giving us agency in our content selection and training, allowing historians to oversee us rather than administrators, empowering us to work with community members, being transparent with their decision making and instilling strong safeguards against future arbitrary suspensions.
We believe deeply in the power of collective conversations about our institution’s past and maintain that this year-long historical tour break would be detrimental to our organization. Because of this, we are resuming giving historical tours after winter break, independent of the administration. We hope we will return to giving tours on behalf of the administration eventually, but we simply cannot survive waiting any longer. We are accepting requests for tours next semester and plan to offer daily tours as well. All of our tours are open to everyone, including students and faculty.
This University has so much history. Our tours offer the opportunity for this history to educate and inspire celebration, discussion and growth for the entire University community. For this reason, we are committed to continuing our mission. We hope you will join us.
Jack Giese and Davis Taliaferro are Co-Chairs of the University Guide Service, and Ella Sher is Vice Chair of the University Guide Service.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
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