9 Student reflections
As part of the curatorial process, I had our Student Curators write brief reflections on the work they did during and after the semester. I kept it fairly broad, but asked them to use their Final Reflection for my course (see previous section) as a model. These reflections were completely optional—by this point they were no longer my students, just my collaborators—so I am grateful that they chose to share their thoughts with me, and with you.
Pearl Kluger
Co-curator of the Graduate Labor Union (GLU) exhibit
UVA ’27 (Chemistry)
When I enrolled in my ENWR 1510 course in the summer of 2023, I never could have predicted the impact it would have on me. As a first year student who was new to Charlottesville, I knew little to nothing of the history of graduate students’ struggles regarding labor at the University of Virginia. I was also unaware of the origins of Virginia’s collective bargaining ban, which started in the 1940s right at the University of Virginia Hospital. It was there that Local 550—a group comprised of African American hospital workers at the University of Virginia Hospital—was so successful in campaigning for fair compensation and equal employment opportunities that Hospital Superintendent Dr. Carlisle S. Lentz and University President John Lloyd Newcomb turned to the Virginia state legislature to prohibit UVA from recognizing their union.
During my first semester, I learned about the complex history of collective bargaining groups in Virginia in addition to the challenges of conducting historical research. One lesson I learned was that Google does not always have all the answers. This realization motivated me to explore deeper, turning to the university library’s extensive databases and sifting through archived issues of the Cavalier Daily.
I enjoyed this research so much that when Professor Gelly announced he was working on an exhibition on collective bargaining in Virginia, I knew I wanted to be part of the project. I partnered with Hank Hawkins, focusing on the Graduate Labor Union portion of the exhibition. We spent hours in Clemons Library, combing through microfilm and old newspaper articles, and interviewing former members of the Graduate Labor Union. At first, it seemed like a daunting task, to gather enough information and material to tell the Graduate Labor Union’s story. However, the narrative slowly began to form as we pieced together information from archives and interviews.
Once we felt we had enough information, Hank and I faced the challenge of deciding what was essential for telling the Graduate Labor Union’s story. Since we had very few physical objects, we relied heavily on documents and articles. Together, the objects included in the Graduate Labor Union portion of the exhibition highlight the Graduate Labor Union’s history, goals, and purpose.
Above all, this experience has been incredibly impactful and educational and I am thankful I was able to take part in the curation of this exhibition.
Kim Egoavil
Co-curator of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) exhibit
UVA ’27 (Economics & Public Policy and Leadership)
This exhibition stands out to me as one of the most important experiences I’ve ever had the privilege of being part of. From the beginning, Drew and I were entrusted with the responsibility of selecting and presenting key parts of a much larger, important story. We were meticulous in selecting the artifacts that were to be shown in the exhibition, and we strived to be thoughtful and attentive to the voices of those advocating for ATU. We hoped to tell their story in the way they wanted it to be told.
Learning about ATU held particular significance for me due to the proximity of buses in my daily life, especially since my arrival at the university. As a frequent bus rider, I’ve formed connections with both drivers and passengers, prompting deeper reflections on the treatment of bus drivers within the CAT [Charlottesville Area Transit] system. I wanted to shed light on an often overlooked facet of our daily lives—the significance of buses, a seemingly commonplace yet crucial service that many take for granted. I was glad to continue learning about ATU beyond my ENWR class, as through this exhibit opportunity I was able to witness Mary Pettis’s selflessness, Dave Ertl’s quiet yet strong leadership and Matthew Ray’s insightful words. I felt compelled to honor their stories and hard work in the manner they deserved, and so throughout each week, Drew and I remained dedicated to listening and learning.
At the end of the day, our exhibition is a channel through which we hope to make more people aware of the injustices workers endure and the silent yet impactful work of unions. I hope that every person who boards a CAT bus takes a moment to reflect on what was fought for, the countless hours put in, and the sacrifices people have made to improve the collective quality of life. I hope that through our exhibit, people can see that despite the hurdles labor unions will continue to persevere. Their resilience stands as a testament to the potency of collective action and showcases the power people hold when they unite and resist.
Drew Dillman
Co-curator of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) exhibit
UVA ’27 (English & History)
When I stepped on Grounds in August 2023, I did not expect that a first-year writing seminar would produce a profound, unique experience that I could not have done anywhere else. It all feels like a matter of luck, as I believe I was selected into the writing class with Prof. Gelly by some random matching of the computer system. However, I feel a weighty and significant difference in myself due to my work on this exhibition. Through the course of that class, I learned the basic nuts and bolts that would prove valuable in the curatorial work I’d be doing after the semester ended—although I did not know it yet. I still had a lot to learn, though, when the internship began.
I was not imagining what our work would result in when I began the curatorial fellowship. I imagined something informative, but largely dry, unseen by the masses. I could not be gladder to be wrong. I found our work to be, on purpose, deeply and passionately about the people we were making the exhibition about. I also feel a difference in my own self—I feel more aware, or conscious, of class issues that have and still are plaguing Charlottesville, Virginia, and the United States at large. It is a segment I had not particularly noted, or a segment taught or emphasized, previously. I exit this curatorial fellowship a more aware person, and I know this is a positive thing.
I also feel that my writing shifted to a more confident tone over the course of this fellowship. As we discovered more about the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT), and the many interlocking facets within this town, region, and state, the facts came together in our heads. This allowed us to speak more authoritatively on the topic than I could have imagined.
Additionally, I simply had a great deal of fun while working on this fellowship, and the passion that it imbued within me plays some part in making this second semester a far more exciting one than the first. I looked forward to our Friday recap sessions, or meeting during the middle of the week to work on the phrasing of an object description, or any other task related to the fellowship.
I am thankful to my fellow fellows. We all came out of this fellowship knowledgeable and confident in the work we produced. I am particularly thankful to my partner, Kim, for without her our work on the Amalgamated Transit Union portion of the exhibit would not be the same as it is now. I also am indebted to Holly and Jacquelyn for their support and help through the entire process. I have a distinct passion for research, as well as libraries and their resources therein, and this is due to them. Lastly, I want to thank Prof. Gelly. Through this year, he has guided us through the whole process, and is also just a very nice person, and made the whole experience enjoyable. I am continuing onto a planned History and English double major, and the latter major is present, in some part, due to the passion of the class and the internship that Prof. Gelly shepherded.
This is a story of people. People are what the exhibition is about. It was never a dry academic exercise. People made this exhibition happen, and the exhibition that has resulted from this work is one of my proudest, if not my most proud, achievements.
Elizabeth Campbell
Co-curator of the Staff Union of UVA (SUUVA) exhibit
UVA ’27 (English & Government, Minor in Economics)
When I first took Professor Gelly’s course ENWR 1510: “Writing About Labor,” I did not know what to expect. As freshmen, we are required to take an ENWR during our first year. I chose this specific one because it sounded the most interesting to me, but to be completely frank, I thought of it as a class I simply had to get out of the way. However, as the semester went on and I learned more about unions and what this class entailed, I developed a fascination and a desire to continue educating myself and researching unions at UVA, which is why when Professor Gelly first asked if anyone would be interested in continuing working on looking into Unions, I knew I wanted to. I was so grateful and excited when I got his email saying I could participate in this project.
I worked with my partner, Samantha, to take a deeper look into SUUVA, the Staff Union at the University of Virginia. It was a little tricky sometimes, seeing as SUUVA only lasted a few years, so there was less information on them than on the other groups. However, with Samantha’s help, we were able to put together some of the research we found on them and create an exhibit. It was so exciting learning about their mission and what they accomplished in the short time they were in place. It was incredibly cool to dive deep into the information UVA had on SUUVA by looking at some photos of members (although there were, unfortunately, very few) and at some primary source documents created by members of SUUVA themselves, such as badges and flyers.
My overall experience working on this exhibit was so unique and impactful. I learned so much about SUUVA and the many other unions my fellow members had researched. I am so grateful and excited that I got to be a part of this project. It opened my eyes to a lot of UVA’s history and the strength of the members of these unions, which was nothing short of inspiring. I hope people can learn from our curated exhibit, as I know I did.
Karen Guzman
Co-curator of the United Campus Workers of Virginia (UCW-VA) exhibit
UVA ’27 (Computer Science & Data Science)
At the end of my first semester at UVA, I had completed my first writing requirement: “Writing About Labor.” In my reflection at the time of that course’s completion, I had made two discoveries. Firstly, I realized my interest in research ignited most when the subject matter resonated with me. Secondly, I found I preferred sifting through physical archival materials over digitized materials.
Ironically, curating the Collective Bargaining Exhibition threw me into a predominantly digital research world due to the recent formation of the United Campus Workers at UVA (UCW-VA), the group I had been assigned to. This entailed delving into websites, Google Drives, and social media platforms for my research journey. While this approach might not have been favorable for me in the past, my genuine interest in the group overpowered any hesitation I might have had. Additionally, researching an active group on Grounds intrigued me, even with the shift from researching traditional archival materials. This meant I conducted my research in a more relaxed manner, from the comfort of a cozy spot with my laptop, rather than in the basement room in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.
Finding objects for the exhibit was the most challenging task. The amount of captivating facts and narratives surrounding UCW-VA posed a challenge in determining what to include and to what extent. However, once the objects were finalized, the rest of the process felt doable, but not without a few struggles. Sketching out the layout came naturally, thanks to the collaborative vision my partner and I shared. Although creating a section introduction presented a minor issue in accurately portraying all that UCW-VA does for the UVA community. We encountered similar challenges when attempting to condense months of the group’s effort into a couple of sentences for our object labels. Eventually, we found the right words and were pleased with our work.
The moment it truly sank in was when the Special Collections Instagram account posted about the exhibition’s opening. There I was, on the cover slide in an action shot, carefully mounting a poster onto the display wall. Sharing that post to my own story brought a realization—months of my hard work would soon be showcased for everyone to see. It was an incredibly rewarding moment; the hours I spent looking through articles and websites on my computer helped create an exhibition that reflected my newest community. I am truly grateful to have had the opportunity to highlight the groups that impacted the Charlottesville community, both in the past and during my time on Grounds.
Samantha Bragg
Co-curator of the Staff Union of UVA (SUUVA) exhibit
UVA ’27 (Mathematics)
Coming into my first day of my ENWR 1510 class, “Writing About Labor,” I didn’t know what to expect. I had so many emotions at once. I was nervous because it was my very first class at the University of Virginia as a first-year student. I was dreading the future assignments of the class to come. I was excited as well. But the one thing I knew was I’ve never liked writing, researching, or learning about history. It was never fun for me; whenever I engaged in one of those activities, it would always result in tears out of frustration, confusion, and annoyance.
Therefore, once Piers explained what this class consisted of, and the final project, I felt my stomach drop because he stated all the things I didn’t like just in the introduction of the class. But I didn’t drop the class because I thought it would be inconvenient to find another ENWR class, and because something in my gut told me not to. So I trusted my gut to stay in the class, and I’m glad I did. Otherwise, I would’ve never been able to participate in creating an exhibition at the University of Virginia.
I remember it like it was yesterday when I walked up to Piers on the last day of the semester asking him about the logistics of the research exhibition he’d mentioned. At first, I was hesitant to ask him because I didn’t know if I even wanted to do it. But I still asked him anyways, because I thought it would be a great opportunity to get better at something I hate, plus it would look good on my resume. Once Piers told me the logistics of the research exhibition, I said “Thank you,” and as I was about to turn around and walk out of the classroom, already making up my mind that I didn’t want to participate, Piers said something to me in the likes of “I was hoping you would want to participate.” At first, I was confused because out of all the people in the class why me; what made me so different to the point that Piers wanted me to participate; what made me stand out; what made him want me to participate, seeing that he had read my final reflection essay, in which I said that I hated research with a burning passion. I was very confused to say the least. But after hearing him say that, I started to reconsider the research opportunity because the fact that my professor wanted me to participate was a sign itself. And so I emailed Piers over winter break and decided to be one of the student curators for the Collective Bargaining for the Common Good exhibit at the University of Virginia.
Being a part of this whole research exhibition process was not easy, to say the least; I would even say it was very difficult for me, especially researching the Staff Union at UVA, which wasn’t as prominent in UVA’s history compared to the rest of the unions that everyone else was researching. Even during class, I struggled to find any information on SUUVA, which made the final project for the class hard in itself. I was afraid I was going to get a bad grade because my research was more surface level than detail heavy in terms of a mini exhibition final project.
So I was already going into the research exhibition with the mindset that this was going to be hard. But I felt a little bit better because I knew I at least had someone else who was only focusing on SUUVA too, so maybe they knew some places on the internet to find more information on that union. Unfortunately, for the first two weeks, I was doing all the work myself because my original partner had gotten sick and was traveling a lot for sports since she played for UVA.
The first week I wasn’t too concerned because it was nothing but listening to audio recordings of SUUVA members that Piers had interviewed and taking a couple of notes. But when the student curators met for a second time, I realized I was extremely behind, because everyone had in-depth research of their assigned unions, whereas I couldn’t even figure out how SUUVA started. Shortly after the first-week meeting, I texted my partner explaining to her what she had missed and what we needed to do for week two; she didn’t answer for three days and later told me that she was no longer participating in the exhibition research project anymore. That’s when I started to become extremely overwhelmed. I had a quiz coming up, two midterms coming up, and the research that I’m behind on. During that week, I felt like I couldn’t handle it. I wanted to quit. I wanted to leave and only have to worry about exams; I didn’t want this research project to affect my grades, so I was panicking. While trying to manage everything, I kept on asking myself if I should quit too. Should I tell Piers that it’s too much for me to handle, that I have too much on my plate right now? There were many late nights filled with tears, to say the least, and I don’t know what it was that kept me motivated during that time, but somehow I managed to manage everything and get what I needed to get done.
Eventually, after those rough two weeks, the third week came around, and we had to draft our introduction and sketch out a layout for our exhibit. I was still feeling a little regretful about this whole process, but things started to look up for me once Piers told me that he had a replacement partner for my other partner that had to leave. I started to feel a little bit better about the situation, even though I was still behind on the project compared to everyone else. Initially, with my new partner, things were kind of slow, and I started to go back into that mindset of, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” But after a while, she started to get the hang of the work that we were doing, and eventually we started to catch up more. Then eventually creating labels, researching, and finalizing everything became easier and easier, and before I knew it we had created our first exhibition.
As I reflect on this whole process, I honestly don’t know what motivated me to keep doing what I was doing, to keep pushing through, and to keep participating in something I hate (researching). Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t want to let Professor Piers down after he told me that he hoped that I’d participate. Maybe it was the fact that I felt supported at all times and that Piers and Holly were open to helping me whenever I needed help. Or maybe it was the fact that I knew I could get through this and excel in the project like I do with many things if I actually put my mind to it and don’t give up so easily.
I don’t know what specifically motivated me to continue to contribute to this research exhibition process, but all I can say is I was glad I was given the opportunity, because I was able to challenge and push myself in the process. If I hadn’t done so, I wouldn’t have been able to speak to an NPR reporter for the first time about what my partner and I had created. I wouldn’t have been able to step outside my comfort zone and present/explain to someone the meaning of my project. I would never have been able to experience some small things that counted for a lot. For example, when I got to meet some of the former SUUVA members, including Susan Fraiman and Sylvia New Strawn, and listen to them talk about SUUVA and catch up on daily life things since 2008, it was so sweet to see some of the members come together and reminisce on the tough but fun times they had to together.
Despite the constant frustration and the recurring sense of feeling overwhelmed while trying to balance research with school, if I were asked if I would do it again, I would with no doubt in my mind say “Yes!” because of the little moments, the experiences, the personal growth, establishing connections, and seeing something you work on finally come together after so much work and dedication. And I’ve become better at research, so that I won’t immediately feel my stomach drop and feel a strong sense of dread when I hear the word “research.” That makes participating in Collective Bargaining for the Common Good all worth it.
Hank Hawkins
Co-curator of the Graduate Labor Union (GLU) exhibit
UVA ’27 (Women, Gender & Sexuality, Minor in American Sign Language)
In reflecting on my time in the initial “Writing About Labor” course, I found how it prepared me for both what I would most love and be challenged by most in curating for the Collective Bargaining for the Common Good exhibit.
Addressing what I loved first, the course sparked joy in me for archival research, which included microfilm reading, searching Clemons library stacks, and requesting decades old items from the Special Collections library. Before college, History classes were always the ones I found most frustrating and limiting, and this course gave me the opportunity to completely restructure my relationship with researching the past, just by bringing me inside these buildings that were new to me. So many of these spaces on campuses can very easily be reduced to study spaces, yet the course illustrated new ways I could interact with the Clemons and Special Collections libraries. Learning of the digital archive gap during the early 2000s gave my searching of Cavalier Daily microfilm records a sense of academic weight, emphasizing how I brought a new pair of eyes to this relic of the very university I was sitting in.
As I searched for mentions of the Graduate Labor Union, I found myself going down related rabbit holes, like coverage of Virginia’s recession in 2002 and the state government’s response, and rabbit holes of personal interest, varying from coverage of early American Idol to speculation about the D.C. sniper. I was able to feel a sense of nostalgia for the time right before I was born in 2005, learning about what influenced the media and societal fears that my mother would have shared with me during my earliest development. I was able to humanize this era that I was so close to experiencing firsthand, and even see how eerily the dysfunctions of that time are repeating themselves two decades later. Those weeks I spent returning to Clemons, scanning the microfilm for newspaper clippings, emailing them to myself, writing myself a timeline in my inbox, laid the groundwork for most of my work curating for the CBCG exhibit. This meant that I was able to better invest my time during the curation process in refining the timeline I already had and using it for reference while interviewing former members of GLU. It was incredible to feel the union and the period they existed in coming to life in my timeline, and then coming to life once again when I was able to meet the people I had been investigating and documenting for the past semester.
However, the curation stage had its challenges. Upon meeting the GLU members, it quickly came to light how little they remembered. The grand scenes I had imagined based on the slim reporting and even slimmer photographic evidence could be neither proven nor disproven, as these were just typical days in the life for the former GLU members, part of their busy days at the university. These were the moments where I wished I was taking more notes on my own experiences at the university, or to at least start writing in pen. I was realizing that my writing needed to be narrowed down to what we had the most evidence for, yet that was limiting my ability to convey what I found so compelling in my research.
As I worked on the exhibition, I chose to include some flashy Cavalier Daily headlines and impressive GLUsletter issues, but with such copious amounts of text on these issues of developing the union, the limits of what they could do, and opinions for and against them, I couldn’t find much that would catch the eye of a passer-by. The forest would be lost among the trees. I knew that there was a collection of lively personas at the heart of this union seeking to challenge a university that was working students to the bone without proper compensation, yet I couldn’t exactly put their headshots up on the CBCG exhibit walls.
In the final product, I think my timeline was what shone through. With enough attention, a passer-by could ascertain the struggle these students went through to shift their peers’ and faculty’s perspectives towards the potential of collective action for the university’s betterment. I was able to highlight these story beats after interviewing GLU members, who directed me to some key moments: GLU’s healthcare rallies, their efforts to highlight the cost of living for graduate students, and the union’s efforts to get discounts for union members at local businesses (an effort to retain membership despite the restrictions on collective bargaining).
I do still wish I had developed my writing for object labels with a bit more creativity. I feel that I forgot one of the key lessons I learned from the “Writing About Labor” course, which was to experiment with my voice, to not always write like a traditional essay. With curatorial writing needing to be so brief yet impactful, experimentation with more conversational ways of expressing my research would have been much more beneficial to my drafting process than scouring my scanned newspaper clippings for the just-right detail to add. Despite having plenty of time, and still making a great product, I wish I had more time to practice curating. I’ll have to try it again soon.