The Lawn at the University of Virginia

Jefferson founded the University of Virginia in 1819 and opened it to students in 1825. The Lawn he designed at its center — a terraced green flanked by ten Pavilions housing senior faculty, with student rooms between — was built as a deliberate argument against what university life had been. No church at the center. No required theology. A library modeled on the Roman Pantheon at one end, the Blue Ridge Mountains open at the other. Students still live in those rooms today, chosen in their final year, heating them by fireplace, walking outside to use the bathroom. Jefferson's design, unchanged.

The students didn't always cooperate. Jefferson assembled the first class to deliver a rebuke and was too overcome to speak. A professor was shot dead on the Lawn in 1840. That killing prompted the drafting of the nation's first codified honor system — no lying, cheating, or stealing — with expulsion as the single penalty for 180 years. In 2022, students voted to replace expulsion with a two-semester suspension.

In 1987, UNESCO designated the Academical Village and nearby Monticello a World Heritage Site — the first university grounds in the United States to receive that recognition. Graduation happens on the grass each spring.