In August 2022, the University of Virginia welcomed 4,031 first-year students to Grounds.
They arrived with lofty ambitions, big questions, and relentless drive.
Two years after a global pandemic had upended their lives, they longed for a return to normalcy. Their college experience, they hoped, would be different from the two turbulent years of high school they had just endured.
If not fuller and sweeter, at least normal.
It would not be.
September 8, 2022.
November 13, 2022.
October 7, 2023.
May 4, 2024.
June 27, 2025.
Each date marked another rupture in their college experience, another moment when the promise of a return to normal receded further from view.
Through it all, I watched the students’ resilience and resolve with admiration.
As my appreciation deepened, so did my compulsion to document.
I was always recording. But around September 2025, I became more intentional.
We became more intentional. 2025-26, we shot a lot.
In Lecture halls. At Board of Visitors meetings, Black Alumni Weekend, probates and step-show practices. Virginia General Assembly sessions.
BSA’s Black Ball. Black Voices concerts.
I’m looking forward to sharing the fruits of that labor through our latest film, Board of Visitor.
Told through the perspective of fourth-year student Gregory D. Perryman, Board of Visitor follows a class and a cohort as they navigate a university—and a world—transformed around them.
It is a story about grief and resilience, belonging and responsibility, vocation and meaning.
It’s playing at the VFF on Friday October 23, at 2:30 at the Violet Crown.
