The University Guide Service will begin holding independent historical tours Jan. 24 with tours offered every Friday, Saturday and Sunday starting at 11 a.m. After a suspension of both historical and admissions tours just before the beginning of the Fall 2024 semester, the Guide Service parted from the University Dec. 4 to independently reinstate historical tours. Guide Service leadership has said that they will continue working with the University to reinstate admissions tours.
The Guide Service is a student-led organization which had previously been able to conduct tours sanctioned by the University per a special status organization agreement in which the Guide Service acts as an agent of the University. According to University Spokesperson Bethanie Glover, in conducting historical tours separately from administrative authority, the Guide Service is no longer considered to be acting on behalf of the University.
“Any individual may give a tour of the University, however, the Guide Service provides tours on the University's behalf through a special status agreement.” Glover said. “They are free to resume historic tours as individuals, separate from the Guide Service agreement and name.”
Beginning at the Rotunda steps and navigating the Academical Village and gardens, previous Guide Service historical tours delved into the founding ideals of the University and how these ideals have evolved over time.
According to Jack Giese, co-chair of the Guide Service and fourth-year College student, there will be no significant changes to the content of these tours and the Guide Service will continue to implement the student-led training program for historical tours. This program consists of four hours of in-person training each week for a total of ten weeks, in which students learn history from local “experts” including historians, professors and graduate students.
“We've always had a unique student-run training, and so we will not be changing the content from what we've done in the past, as all of that information is something that was student-generated,” Giese said. “Our tours have their distinct brand, and we are going to stick to that as closely as we have in the past.”
Davis Taliaferro, Guide Service co-chair and fourth-year College student, said that the purpose of historical tours is to shed light on the University’s complicated past while also reflecting a broader national story of resistance to oppression and rising against unjust systems in hopes of a better future.
“[The suspension] put a full stop to all of that history being shared … so a lot of the stories that we share weren't shared for that semester during a period where we saw a lot of discussions about history, as it is increasingly relevant in election years,” Taliaferro said.
While the University will not hold student-led historical tours this semester, Glover said administrators have been working with members of the Guide Service to develop self-guided tours in the form of a brochure to be released at the start of this semester. According to Glover, the University will also be developing a more comprehensive self-guided audio or online history tour which will debut at the beginning of the Fall 2025 semester.
“The decision to pause the University’s delegation of authority to the University Guide Service to deliver U.Va. history tours centers on the institution’s desire to work with historians, students and others in our community to develop a holistic, self-guided U.Va. history tour that honestly, fully and consistently engages with our school’s history — both the difficult and the uplifting stories,” Glover said.
According to Giese, the University provided reasoning for the suspension of admissions tours and a framework for improvement by means of a semester-long training program, but there was limited explanation as to why the historical tours were also placed on an extended suspension.
“The complaints that administrators had [for admissions tours] were made pretty clear over the summer when they suspended us and there was a very clear pathway forward,” Giese said. “What we noticed on the history side is those [tours] were suspended at the same time without the same justifications that the admissions tour suspension had.”
Taliaferro also shared that there was little effort from the University to reestablish historical tours led by the Guide Service, which factored into their decision to conduct tours independently.
“It was ultimately that waiting game of us asking and asking for answers and not really getting anything in return, particularly in terms of the return date [of historical tours], that pushed us to give these tours.” Taliaferro said.
Guide Service members will also not be able to conduct admissions tours this semester without completing a semester-long training program established by the Office of Admissions last fall in order to address concerns about Guide Service tour quality. Only one Guide has completed this program thus far — other than that individual, only interns for the Office of Admission can conduct those tours.
According to Taliaferro, student Guides are currently in the process of completing this training. Taliaferro said that the Guide Service originally had approximately 100 student Guides in the Spring 2024 semester before the suspension took place, and now there are approximately 50 to 60 Guides who are currently training for admissions tours while also preparing to give independent historical tours.
One second-year Guide, who asked to remain anonymous, stated their support for the co-chairs’ efforts to work with University administration and return to giving University-sanctioned tours. According to this Guide, the University did not adequately inform Guides on the problems with tours before suspending the Guide Service, but said that they still hope to work with the University in future.
“I definitely think that working with the University is always the best option. Even though we might not agree with them on some things, they unfortunately have the power in this situation,” the Guide said. “And I think that giving historical tours with their support … just makes them better [and allows for] more people to come on these tours.”
According to Glover, the University will continue to work with Guide Service leadership to navigate the best path forward for both admissions and historical tours this semester. Both Giese and Taliaferro also stated their intention to continue communication and meet with University administrators to reach an agreement and eventually return to giving University-sanctioned tours as a special status organization.
“We do think that our mission is best carried out when we are doing tours on behalf of the University, provided that we have enough autonomy to train new Guides … and give Guides enough space and flexibility to choose the narratives in history that speak to them and that they want to share to others,” Giese said.
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