We expose UVA undergraduates to intellectually diverse content in fields including culture, politics, science, religion, and economics. We do that through public speakers and panels, small reading groups, and workshops. At our events, we’ve distributed hundreds of books we think students should be reading.

10% of current UVA undergraduates have attended at least one Blue Ridge event in 2024, and hundreds have attended more than one. In 2024, we organized 45 public events, 7 workshops, and 12 reading groups - which makes us a leader in programming for UVA students.

Our public events have covered a dozen different areas of study and interest, including public policy, law, politics & history, economics & business, faith, foreign policy, engineering, nursing, and urban planning. Our reading groups and workshops have also touched on political philosophy, history, sociology, business ethics, and more.

Blue Ridge is headed by UVA professor Gerard Alexander and has two full-time employees and one part-time employee. Our team arranges, schedules, and hosts all our events, designs and executes all our marketing to students, pulls together readings for small-group programs, and arranges food for participants.

Our office and meeting space are conveniently located on the Corner, above the CVS in the old Anderson Book Building. This is where we hold all small-group activities – reading groups, workshops, and book clubs.

Our programs are aimed at UVA students, but no one will be turned away! We don’t livestream because we want students to attend our programs in person, to participate in conversation and meet speakers and each other. However, we are recording some public events and will start making those available in podcast format soon

There are many ways to help Blue Ridge and our mission! Let us know if you can connect us to potential speakers on important topics. You might help us identify people in the Charlottesville area who could be experts on reading group or workshop topics, would be good teachers, and would like to connect with students without any grading or administrative work. If you know current UVA students or their parents, have them sign up on our website or email us at info@theblueridgecenter.org.

And you can help us cover the costs of doing all this.

If you click on the orange Support button on our website, you’ll see how to give online with a credit card, by mailing a check, through a donor-advised fund, or even by wire transfer or donating appreciated securities.