What Can Be Learned From Campus Protests Of The Past?

New Jefferson Council President Joel Gardner recalls UVA's "siege of Carr's Hill"

Many of today’s college students may think the turmoil they see on campus is something new and unprecedented. But of course that’s not true. Things were at least as bad, and arguably even worse, during the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, which some look back on as the Golden Age of student protest.

Are things worse now than they were then? Can a campus ever return to “normal” after such polarizing events? What can be learned from the radical ‘60s and ‘70s that might lend context to events unfolding today?

New Jefferson Council President Joel Gardner brings a unique perspective to such questions because he was a student at the University of Virginia during the last major period of campus unrest — and he was directly involved in one of the more notorious protests in UVA history, the so-called siege on Carr’s Hill.

Gardner recalls those still-shocking events in the video below, before sharing some thoughts on what can be done to bring civility back to campus and mitigate the damage that such divisive times can do to campus unity.