1973 UVA graduate Cynthia Goodrich Kuhn was the first female Lawn resident and is part of a portrait and historical marker series featuring people who helped break barriers at the University. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak, University Communications)
They were pioneers, members of the first group of female undergraduates to be admitted to the University of Virginia in the not-too-distant past – 1970, to be exact.
Earlier this month, one of those young women, Cynthia Goodrich Kuhn, who transferred to UVA in 1970 as a second-year student and graduated in 1973 with a degree in international relations, returned to Grounds for a truly full-circle moment. She’d come to see her new portrait, which hangs in the Office of Undergraduate Admission.
Kuhn, who has lived in the Pacific Northwest for the last several years, was contacted by the University several years ago with a question: Would she sit for an official portrait for a new series UVA was launching? It would be part of a larger effort, using photos and historical markers to highlight people who’d broken barriers at UVA. Kuhn’s portrait would be the face of coeducation at UVA.
Kuhn saw her portrait in person for the first time earlier this month. She would later say that seeing it made her feel “seen.” (Photo by Mary Ann Winecoff)
Her answer was “Yes.” She just had one request: She wanted the photographer to come her home in Washington State.
“I wanted to do it there because I have a Lawn rocking chair which I bought when I graduated from Virginia,” she said. “I have four of them.”
In a wholly unique experience, after her application for a Lawn room was accepted, she was assigned room 28 because it was close to a bathroom that would be newly renovated, since prior to her arrival, only men had used the Lawn bathrooms.
Kuhn’s daughter, Margaret, a 2002 alumna, applied to live on the Lawn for her fourth year and drew room 28, the same room her mother inhabited in the early 1970s. Kuhn’s maiden name, Cynthia Goodrich, and her daughter’s, Margaret Grace Kuhn, are both included on this list of room occupants. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak, University Communications)
“It’s pretty much the ultimate honor to be selected [for a portrait] and basically told you represent an aspect of this place that’s unique,” Kuhn said.
She’d come a long way. Her first year after transferring, Kuhn lived in an apartment off Grounds. Her second, she was a resident adviser in Gwathmey House. Now she had arrived at the center of the University.
“Thinking about it now, it’s coming from way outside the University all the way in, in the course of three years,” she said. “It felt like an opportunity one did not decline.”
She talked a bit about what it was like to be a female student at UVA in those early years. For one thing, it was hard to build community because women were still a rarity at UVA. For example, there was no large sorority presence yet. And moving to room 28 constricted her circle even further.
“Your memories soften over time. I mean … I didn’t have a lot of friends up there,” Kuhn said. “It wasn’t like, you know, people were like, ‘Hey, come on down to have a beer,” or, “Let’s do things.’ People had their own universes, their own communities at that point.
“I wasn’t treated badly,” she continued. Kuhn considered her next words. She was “a curiosity more than a colleague. Let me say that.”
The Moment of Truth
Kuhn and her husband arrived on Grounds about 8:30 a.m. on June 2, found some coffee and strolled along the Lawn. A little later, they met Meg Kennedy, who oversees the curation, description and access to the University’s Fine and Decorative Arts Collection. She would take them to see Kuhn’s portrait.
Kuhn lived in room 28 on the east side of the Lawn her fourth year. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak, University Communications)
First, the trio returned to the Lawn to view the Rita Dove portrait, which hangs in the Colonnade Club as part of the portrait and marker series.
“That showed me, ‘OK, these are giant pictures,’” Kuhn said almost incredulously.
Then they headed to Newcomb Hall to see the photos of beloved Ms. Kathy, who for years has been a warm welcoming presence to students in the dining hall. Then it was time for Kuhn to see her own portrait.
Kuhn, who worked in communications for the D.C. Bar for many years, said she is not someone “who likes to be straight out in front of everybody.” Neither is she a reflective person by nature.
“My whole world was making all the volunteers look great and get out in the public and let me stand in the back,” Kuhn said. “I’m a person whose feet are planted firmly and looking forward. This is where I find my greatest strength. I don’t look back much.”
But when she stepped into the entryway of Peabody Hall and finally came face-to-face with her own likeness, the memories and thoughts came flooding back.
Reflection was now staring Kuhn in the face.
As she described that moment, Kuhn’s slow, steady voice suddenly stalled and involuntarily cracked. “Wow. I still choke up a little bit. It’s pretty astonishing,” she said a few days after her visit.
“I said to somebody, ‘Well, one of the things that I’m thinking about in hindsight after having seen it, had all the emotion, I said, ‘I know I did this and I know I was part of something very special,” she said. “But I feel like I’ve been seen. I’ve been seen in a pretty profound way on behalf of all the other women who were never seen.”
Part of History
Kuhn’s legacy is not just in the portrait. Both of Kuhn’s daughters are UVA grads. Older daughter Margaret graduated in 2002 and Katharine a year later. Margaret applied to live on the Lawn and, after a lottery, was assigned to live in the same room her mother occupied in the early 1970s.
“It was random. And you pull the number out of the hat as you’re going through and when she got her number, the room was available and she took it,” Kuhn said with a chuckle.
For Kuhn, the significance of having her portrait hang in a place where prospective students and their families regularly visit is not lost on her.
“I’m incredibly proud,” she said. “And I’m also incredibly humbled.”
