Editor’s Note: Almost one year ago, the emerging COVID-19 pandemic forced UVA to announce it would move all of its courses online. Students were urged to return to their homes. Along with the rest of the world, the entire UVA community entered a new way of life. As we approach the anniversary of these events, take a look back to early days of the pandemic and what Grounds looked like as UVA shifted to a new paradigm.
Photos: Life on Grounds as UVA Confronts a Pandemic
Students left behind notes – and a big bear – on the Lawn. (Photos by Sanjay Suchak, University Communications)
As the threat of the novel coronavirus spread across the globe, it became increasingly clear that the University of Virginia would not be immune.
On March 11, UVA President Jim Ryan announced that classes would move online in an effort to “flatten the curve” and contain a growing epidemic. With that announcement, UVA moved into uncharted territory and joined countless other universities and organizations across the United States in adapting to this new normal.
As a photographer, I believe it is important to remain safe, but also continue to document, both to create a historical record of this unprecedented time and to show the hard work of members of the University’s faculty and staff. Equally important, I felt we needed to convey our students’ experience as they mourn the sudden and unexpected end to their semester as they knew it.
Here’s what I have seen around Grounds. These were taken throughout the week as the situation on Grounds evolved. Now, courses will remain online for the rest of the semester and faculty and staff have been asked to telecommute as their responsibilities allow.
Mike Spence, project manager for the new Memorial to Enslaved Laborers, under construction on Grounds, practices safe social distancing by setting up his office in the center of the nearly completed memorial.
Meanwhile in the Rotunda, a Ph.D. candidate defended a dissertation to faculty both in the room and over videoconferencing software.
Alderman Library is completely empty, except for staff at the circulation desk.
Around Alderman staff have posted reminders about safe social distancing on tables; however, the normally popular lounge remained empty.
Staff at The Castle dining facility look out the window. There are no customers to attend to, as most first-years have left for home. Only Observatory Hill Dining remains open.
First-year student Tiana Santana from North Carolina secures her suitcases in the back of a truck as she moves out of her dorm. The University gave students until noon Wednesday to retrieve any belongings they wanted. Only students and faculty who have no other option may remain in on-Grounds housing.
At Bodo's on the Corner, a normally bustling lunch spot had only a handful of customers. A sign at the door implored customers to practice safe social distancing, wash their hands and take their food to go.
Zachary S., a greeter on the front door team for UVA Health, screens two visitors to the UVA Medical Center. Greeters at every entrance are asking visitors a series of questions to determine if they are at risk of possibly having been infected with COVID-19. Visitors with respiratory symptoms or possible COVID-19 exposure are not allowed in clinics or the Medical Center.
Mask-wearing students carry items past the usual display of shirts outside Mincer’s on the Corner, a juxtaposition illustrating just how fast the current situation is shifting from normal to anything but normal.
UVA School of Architecture Creative Director of Communications Sneha Patel and photographer Tom Daly work to create panoramic photos of the School of Architecture to quickly provide virtual tours for prospective students, as physical visits will be impossible for now.
Meanwhile inside the architecture studio, floor desks are empty and the space, which is normally loud and bustling at this point in the semester, is completely silent. Student projects sit unfinished across the whole area.
Inside CVS Pharmacy on the Corner, a student shops amid bare shelves where disinfectant cleaning products used to be stocked. A notice on one shelf announces that some products are unavailable.
A UVA Facilities Management employee tapes a notice on the door of Old Cabell Hall with considerations for those who enter the building.
Biomedical engineering professor William Guilford conducts a Zoom class from his office for students in his “Biomedical Engineering Design and Discovery” course.
Guilford, assistant dean for undergraduate education at the School of Engineering, helped fellow faculty members prepare to shift classes online in a matter of days. Most online instruction began Thursday and continues through the end of the semester.
St. Patrick’s Day on the Lawn looked like nearly any other one from years before. At around 6 p.m. Tuesday, when this photo was taken, more than 100 students congregated on the Lawn despite the University’s order to return home and pleas from health care specialists to socially distance themselves from each other.
By 10 p.m., the situation had changed. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued an executive order banning congregating in groups larger than 10 people. Ryan shortly thereafter sent an email notifying the UVA community that all classes would be conducted online for the rest of the semester and Final Exercises would not be held as originally planned. Corner restaurants and bars like Boylan Heights and Trinity, which only hours earlier were full of students, were now empty, with the exception of staff. On the Lawn, students came to mourn the end of their college time. In this photo, students embrace on the Lawn, shocked that they now must leave and the remainder of their college time will take place outside of Charlottesville and apart from each other.
The next morning, the situation was quite different. Students were observed sitting in a circle, a perfect six feet apart, enjoying their Bodo’s bagels.
Employees from IM-Rec Sports moved the goals together on Carr’s Hill Field to lock them up as they close the field for the remainder of the semester.
Facilities Management employees used the unforeseen vacancy in the Colonnade Club to replace plumbing fixtures that were obsolete, but could not be replaced when guests were present. Facilities Management staff have worked tirelessly to maintain and secure Grounds.
Graduate students Morgan and Chris pack up Morgan’s room on the East Range. This is their last semester at the University.
Across Grounds, a lone student has a Zoom video conference with a professor in an otherwise empty South Lawn Commons. Shortly after this photo was taken, he closed his laptop, gathered his belongings and left. The normally busy building took on an eerie silence.
At UVA Health, Dr. Steven Zeichner and his lab technicians Hanna Yu and Vignesh Rajasekaran are hard at work developing a potential vaccine for the COVID-19 virus, as well as working to understand how the disease affects children. Their work will help formulate best practices for treatment of younger patients who become infected.
![30 pack of Genesee Light on the brick sidewalk in front of a Lawn room with a note that read Take me, just promise you'll [expletive blurred out] quarantine](/sites/default/files/panu_beer_ss_03_blurred_full-width.jpg)
Students moving out of their Lawn rooms left notes to whoever might chance upon them, this one taped to an added incentive.
Some graduating students donned their caps and gowns early to take one last look at the Lawn before snapping some pictures and heading home.
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December 3, 2024
