Student Experience

What exactly is student self-governance? UVA student filmmakers tackle the topic

Katie Frick had traveled from Florida to the University of Virginia, but after a few months on Grounds, she felt lost.

She’d tried to join some of the University’s most sought-after student-run organizations, but didn’t get accepted.

“I faced a lot of rejection from the special status organizations, like Honor, UJC,” she said, referring to the Honor Committee and the University Judiciary Committee, perhaps the pinnacle of student self-governance on Grounds. She had no luck with Student Council or business clubs, either, but did find a home at the University Programs Council. Still, the other rejections stung.

“I felt like I wasn’t enough,” she said. “I felt like I didn’t deserve to be here.”

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Then she spotted another opportunity. Student Affairs was seeking undergraduates to create videos about student self-governance, a much-discussed University value that gives Wahoos wide latitude to control their own behavior and activities. She got the gig.

“It quite literally changed my life,” she said. When the project got underway in her second year, “I felt a renewed sense of purpose, and that I was contributing to something larger than myself,” she added.

Frick, then a global security and justice major, teamed with two other students – Chloe Schueman, now a third-year media studies and foreign affairs major, and Daniel McCain, now a fourth-year media studies major – to explore student self-governance at UVA.

Frick says the project helped her feel connected to the University at a time when she doubted her purpose on Grounds. “It quite literally changed my life,” she said. (Photo by Kelly West, University Communications)

Student Affairs had received a Jefferson Trust grant to fund the project. But rather than hiring a team of seasoned video professionals, Student Affairs staff figured videos about student self-governance should be created by students.

Enter Frick, Schueman and McCain.

“Let me think about how to phrase this real quick,” McCain said when asked to explain the concept succinctly. “Student self-governance is ultimately a way for students at UVA to have control over not just themselves, but the things they’re passionate about, to help inspire others, and to enact change in the way they see fit.”

The first of five episodes recently debuted on the Student Affairs website.

Daniel McCain: Here at UVA, whether you’re hanging out with friends or you just got out of class, there are so many different ways to connect and engage around Grounds.

Chloe Schueman: We follow student self-governance in action, where we explore history, agency, resilience, creativity and community.

Katie Frick: At its core, student self-governance is a legal and philosophical framework that delegates responsibility to students. It makes your UVA our UVA.

Today, we explore self-governance throughout history, how the past influences the present and how tradition is tested.

Since the founding of the University, students have been trusted to shape much of campus life themselves, learning leadership not by watching it, but by living it.

Whether it’s leading organizations, upholding traditions or serving their peers, that responsibility has long been a core part of the UVA experience.

Malcolm Stewart: When you think about when the school was first founded, the people that were thought in mind when it came to both the students and governing are very different than how the University looks now, especially when you have the representation of women, students of color, all across the University.

Matthew Foley: You can’t have UVA history without student self-governance, from the honor system, UJC, Student Council, to some of these grassroots efforts to, for example, build Clemons Library in the 1970s, I believe it was, to protesting around Grounds for causes people believe in. It’s such an integral part of the University story.

Chandler Nandkumar: But when you’re able to look back in history and look at other leaders and look how they have handled things, which is, I think, why institutional memory is important within each org, you’re able to see that this is not the first time something has happened, and they were able to have successful years as presidents. And the org is still here to this day, you know, 2026.

We were founded in 1969. So, know that we’re still here after so many years.

Bhavyasri Suggula: You are contributing to something – yes, short-term – but your legacy will be remembered for years when people look back into archives and be like, “Oh, this is something. This is the work that this person did,” and just recognizing it’s in your hands to build the path that you’re in.

And there’s so many people before you that have worked to allow you to create that space.

Jackson Sleadd: And then I also want to help the University improve where it can, because this is a place with a lot of history, and it’s always changing.

So, with regards to traditions, we do Lighting of the Lawn. That’s one of the biggest things that class councils do here at UVA.

I think that is a fantastic tradition, and it works every year. And it started out as just, you know, Christmas lights on the pavilions.

And now it has evolved into a light show on the Rotunda and a drone show. And I would say those are innovations.

And so, continuing to build on our traditions, because the tradition doesn’t have to be stuck in time.

Alwyn Dippenaar: Talking about the history, it’s great to see, like even decades later, some alumni still, like, fondly remembering the Washington Society, coming back to, like, alumni events, whatever.

So, I think there is something really powerful in this community that’s been able to keep it around for so many – over 100 years.

Ainsley Sadler: And with Cavs Care, nothing like this existed. There was no CPR club, there was no first aid club, and now there is. And now we’ve provided over 500 certifications for free to students.

And that’s something really powerful.

And so, I would encourage kids, if they have an idea, even if it starts small and just as an idea, they can absolutely go out and make a change.

And, I mean, we’ve done it in just a year and a half, and the organization is still growing and will hopefully grow after we’re gone and after we’ve graduated.

Semony Shah: There’s a quote that I always think about from Maya Angelou, and it talks about how people might not remember what you say or what you think, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel.

And I think I would be more satisfied if I knew that I left my community feeling welcomed, feeling open and feeling safe.

And I hope that in any community that I’m involved in, that when I leave, those feelings stay and they’re continued by the next generation of leadership.

Malcolm Stewart: I think every pivotal point in the University of Virginia’s history, all of the major changes that we have seen, have come from students.

“The docuseries itself is fantastic,” Kenyon Bonner, vice president and chief student affairs officer, said. “But what I find most meaningful is that the making of the series became an exercise in self-governance itself.”

The students, working from a concept conceived by Julie Caruccio, assistant vice president for student initiatives, partnered with Nite4Nite Productions. But “the students owned the vision, shaped the story, took most of the footage and made the key decisions about how to capture an experience they knew firsthand,” Bonner continued. “In many ways, the process taught as much as the final product.”

“We decided on five themes we wanted to focus on: history, resilience, creativity, agency and community,” Schueman said.

And they decided to define student self-governance broadly, rather than focusing on the most obvious examples.

McCain says it was important to include all aspects of student self-governance, from the most visible examples of the special status organizations to the less serious organizations like the SpongeBob Club. (Photo by Kelly West, University Communications)

“A common conception is that student self-governance is for those big institutions like Honor and UJC, the special status organizations,” Frick said. “But I think the intent and purpose of student self-governance is to empower any and every student to embrace their passion and their love and follow that. It’s in every aspect of being a student.”

That meant, Schueman said, exploring niche groups as well.

“I met so many people I would never have met before, and it opened my eyes to a whole different side of UVA,” Schueman said. “What do you mean there’s a Concrete Canoe Team that makes a concrete canoe and then races in it? I totally didn’t know that engineering students do this, but I am talking to them for an hour and making connections. It was really nice.”

Frick, Schueman and McCain interviewed dozens of members of student-run groups spanning the serious and the frivolous, including Lawnies, the University Programs Council, the History Club, the Student Disability Alliance and literary and debating societies. They even met with the SpongeBob Club.

Schueman says the project let her explore a side of UVA she didn’t know existed. “What do you mean there’s a Concrete Canoe Team that makes a concrete canoe and then races in it?” she said. (Photo by Kelly West, University Communications)

“We definitely wanted to lean into the fun aspects of student self-governance,” Schueman said. “At the end of the day, the things students are doing are not just for the resume. It’s because they are genuinely passionate about what they’re involved in.”

The interviews were shot last academic year. The students spent the summer supervising the final production.

A couple of weeks ago, a preview popped up on the Student Affairs Instagram channel.

“I was like, ‘It’s out, guys, the trailer is out!’” Frick said. “I was screaming at all my friends who live on the Lawn. It was so rewarding. It was finally happening, and I couldn’t stop smiling.”

Frick wasn’t being dramatic when she said this project changed her life. It kindled a passion she didn’t know she had, and she decided to add media studies to her major.

“This really helped me find my purpose of telling other people’s stories,” she said. “It reminded me of why UVA is such a unique place and why you need to embrace your identity. And it reminded me of why I came here. It’s made me have a love for UVA that is unmatched, and I am forever indebted to this school.”