This spring, The Dietrich School's Department of History faculty took 29 students to Monticello, Virginia — Thomas Jefferson's plantation home and a UNESCO World Heritage Site — for an immersive day of engaged learning tied to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Students enrolled in courses spanning the breadth of the department made the trip, including the Introductory Seminar on the Enlightenment, the Capstone Seminar on Slavery and Abolition in the Atlantic World, the American Revolution History Survey, African American History, and Introduction to Public History. Departing Posvar Hall at 5:30 AM and returning close to midnight, the group completed three tours: the Gardens and Grounds Tour, the Highlights Tour of Jefferson's house, and the Slavery at Monticello Tour.
The visit offered students an immersive experience outside the classroom during a landmark commemorative year — one that pointed to the global and multi-causal origins of the nation's founding while reckoning honestly with the centrality of slavery to Jefferson's world and legacy. Students arrived curious, engaged, and ready to connect what they had studied in the classroom to the layered and often difficult history on the ground at Monticello.
The Department of History says they are grateful to the co-sponsors who made the trip possible: the Center for Global Studies, the Atlantic History Program, Early Modern Worlds, the World History Center, and the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.