Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 6, 1995 TAG: 9503060027
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL D. SHEAR AND JEFF LEEDS WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
They sit at the center, some call it the soul, of the University of Virginia - 54 student rooms opening onto the graceful colonnades that flank the famous Rotunda designed by Thomas Jefferson.
For decades, the students who have lived in these snug 12-by-14-foot rooms have done so by virtue of their positions heading the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, the Judiciary Committee, the Honor Committee and the like.
And many have considered their 200-year-old red-brick abodes to be due recognition for ``unselfish service to the university and achievement,'' in the words of university guidelines.
Others on campus have characterized occupants of the Lawn as elites or politicos.
With some exceptions, critics have said, Lawn-dwellers have been white, male and well-connected with the university's fraternities.
Now, change has come to this most hallowed of ground. Some third-year student leaders who had always assumed that they would spend their last undergraduate year looking out at UVa's most famous greensward find that they don't have a room there. Now they are left scrambling with the rest of the masses for an apartment in town for next fall.
"I think we have a problem, when getting a room is expected. That's antithetical to the idea of unselfish service,'' said Katrina Jones, 22, a fourth-year student from Raleigh, N.C., who headed the selection process for next year's Lawn residents. ``There have been people trying to maintain an undeserved hold on power for those who are in the know.''
And so the unofficial tradition that allowed members of certain organizations to live on the Lawn has been replaced with a quest for more diversity, not to mention more democracy.
At various times, there have been different criteria for living on the Lawn, including one system by which applicants got points for good grades and student activities. Whatever the method, critics say, the process favored those in the know. Applications were kept in a single location at the university housing office, and choices were left to a committee drawn mostly from organizations whose leaders then lived on the Lawn.
This year, for the first time, applications to live in rooms once occupied by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe and Katie Couric were sent to virtually all 2,500 eligible students. Members of the selection committee were chosen at random.
When the housing list was released recently, many who got the coveted Lawn rooms were members of ``nontraditional groups,'' such as the ski team, the chess club, Fellowship Bible Study and the Lesbian Gay and Bisexual Help Line. Twenty-eight of the group members, more than half, are women. And at least 17 percent are minorities, up from 11 percent this year.
Some who are now scouring apartment listings in Charlottesville newspapers are none too happy.
``I thought I had a pretty good shot at getting a room,'' said Keith Buell, 20, of McLean, editor this year of University Journal, one of the two daily campus newspapers. His failure to be selected for a Lawn room breaks a decade-long tradition for the paper. ``You just don't know what the committee is looking for anymore.''
Eric Weingarten, 21, of Buffalo, N.Y., and Robert Bunn, 20, of Newport News, both served on the university's Honor Committee, which metes out punishment to students who violate the honor code by lying, cheating or stealing. A seat on the committee is considered a prestigious post, one often rewarded with a Lawn room.
Both applied to live on the Lawn. Neither was selected.
``Perhaps some organizations have been fixtures on the Lawn, but it's for a reason,'' said Bunn, who also is a member of the Jefferson Society and the student government. ``It's the quality of the individuals who have passed through them.''
Many of next year's ``Lawnies'' say loosening the traditionally strong grip that UVa's more venerated student groups have had on the Lawn is long overdue.
``I don't think that anyone has a right to a Lawn room just because of what they do. I think every person should be judged based on not just what they do but what kind of person they are,'' said Rishi Agrawal, 20, an English major from North Brunswick, N.J. He founded the school's chess club, has edited a UVa literary magazine and has written for student publications.
``Next year's list shows that the selection committee wanted to tell people that there is no formula to get on the Lawn. Nobody should demand a Lawn room.''
Said future Lawn resident John Stambaugh, 20, of Arlington, president of the Virginia Cycling Club: ``I'm not impressed with the classic definition of what a Lawn resident should be. In the past, the Lawn has had real poor representation of minorities and other marginalized groups."
Hailed as one of the nation's grandest architectural marvels and one of its most beautiful outdoor spaces, the Lawn was the embodiment of Jefferson's ``Academical Village'' - a place where students and professors would live and learn together.
It also is a place for playing football or throwing a Frisbee on a sunny day, the most visible location for shanty towns during protests against South Africa and even the scene of an occasional midnight streaking incident.
Each of the occupants gets a brass plaque, engraved with his or her formal name and fastened to the old paneled door.
But if living on the Lawn is evidence of power, it also is a lesson in roughing it. The rooms have no toilets or showers, and residents have to hike outdoors to other buildings to use such facilities, even on cold winter mornings. Residents stack firewood in front of their rooms every autumn to use in their fireplaces, a necessary backup for antiquated central heating.
William W. Harmon, the university's vice president for student affairs, said that in view of the Lawn's long-held reputation as an exclusive preserve, he urged Jones and others to change the selection process.
Sarah Koss is one of the winners.
Koss, captain of the ski team, is the first person to be rewarded whose primary activity involves that team. She is not a member of any of the more distinguished, historically powerful groups on campus. And she is very happy to have been selected.
``My second year, I thought, `Why would I want to live without a bathroom?''' said Koss, a third-year student from State College, Pa. ``And then this year, I decided it would be a great way to leave the university.''
Jones said she is pleased that people such as Koss are being recognized.
``No one should look at the Lawn and think they don't belong there,'' she said
``We made a real effort to say, `Apply for the Lawn because of what you think you can bring,''' Jones said. ``The Lawn, just like the university, takes a while to represent different perspectives.''
by CNB