Today I met a girl named Shannon in Old Cabell Hall. We did not speak. In fact, she didn’t even see me. But I know we have a lot in common.
Lincoln Perry, a famous painter whose work resides in Lincoln Square, spent nearly two decades painting a bravura mural titled “Students’ Progress” across the lobby and down the stairwells of Old Cabell Hall. The mural is meant to track the progress of one student, who Perry named Shannon, throughout her time at the University. She is a red-haired girl and is present in every panel of the mural, growing in strength and confidence as years pass. Symbolically, she carries with her a violin from her time before college, and as she progresses, the violin remains the one remnant of her previous life and belief system she clings to for repose.
I remember seeing it for the first time while taking a tour of the University the spring of my senior semester. I heard the story from my Guide and appreciated it in the moment, but soon forgot Shannon’s significance. As a first-year, “Students’ Progress” resonates far more with me now than it did before.
In panel one of the mural, Shannon enters the University in ambiguity and anonymity. She shuffles up stairs and steals a glance at a glowing role model on the landing, much like I walked around Grounds for weeks this semester admiring older students who seemed to have their lives far more together than I did.
I never felt more like “panel one” Shannon than when I attended my twice-a-week religious studies seminar called “In Defense of Sin.” Surrounded by accomplished fourth-years, I felt small and out of place. Slowly, however, just as Shannon moved between panels, I overcame my shell shock and graduated into part two of the mural.
On the far left staircase is a scene depicting Perry’s epitome of hyperactive civilization — the crux of Shannon’s internal moral struggle to balance virtue and vice amidst the tenacious clamor of the society she lives in. The stairwell glorifies the scene of a young generation — hinting at a Foxfield-style fête with the mock classical reference of a toga party. The characters in this scene exemplify interplay between the vice-clad commonality of contemporary college life with the virtue of ancient tradition (e.g., lust and chastity, temperance and gluttony, avarice and generosity). The highest of the life-size figures, seated on the wall, is Pride — the most serious vice. Shannon stands amidst the symbolic clash of civilizations and clings tightly to the one remnant of her former life — the violin she had entered the University with.
Every Monday and Wednesday at 2 p.m., I walk into a third floor classroom in Gibson Hall clinging tight to my metaphoric violin — the ideals with which I entered college. Every class we debate the merits of particular sins, and, more often than not, the majority of the class comes to the conclusion that previous notions of sin are archaic, if not obsolete. The class, however, consistently returns to the socially liberal belief inherent to our generation that while we may believe one thing, “to each his own.”
Though it has forced me to re-evaluate many of my high-school convictions, this intensive study of the merits of sin has left me convinced, not wary, of my beliefs. I understand the angles many of my classmates take when they say the vices of ancient times, including anger and pride, are no longer morally wrong, I just often don’t subscribe to their arguments. I don’t believe anger is productive, all lust should be fed, or adultery can be casual and healthy — and neither does nearly half the class.
What emerges in each debate is a clear demarcation between secular and religious ideologies. “In Defense of Sin” is a microcosm for the larger U.Va. experience, for during our undergraduate years students are forced to undertake an intensive intellectual study on personal convictions in the context of phenomenal people, which can ultimately lead to a strengthening of belief.
Perhaps Shannon is depicted in the left stairwell panel of the “Students’ Progress” mural standing in the grey area between conviction and questioning. Holding tight to the violin of her previous conceptions, she wonders where she falls on the scale of virtue and vice, trying to discover how she can find the Aristotelian “Golden Mean” — the balance between the two.
Our time at U.Va. is meant to place us in this grey area, to force us to find, then cross-examine, then find again the ideals we deem most conducive to “The Good Life.” Although the next section of the mural is void of human presence, instead filled with a natural illustration representative of Jefferson’s hope that students would enter into nature prepared to continue a life of learning, one thing is certain: Shannon’s, and our, final scene will be filled with a surety and conviction only gleaned from the uncertain questioning of panels, and undergraduate years, past.
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