Thomas Jefferson envisioned his "Academical Village" as a place where professors and students would interact as a community.  His vision survives to this day: just as the rooms on the Lawn are awarded to undergraduates and the Pavilions are reserved for professors and deans, the buildings of the East and West Ranges are home to many of the University's most accomplished graduate students.

The graduate students living on the Range are as diverse as the subjects they study.  Some residents are pursuing degrees in medicine or law; others are working on doctoral degrees in the arts and sciences.  As you walk past each room, you might encounter a historian, a physicist, a sociologist, and a biomedical scientist  - all living right next door to each other.

However, the Range is more than just a place to live; it is also a community that encourages formal and informal contact between scholars in different disciplines and professions.  Most of the graduate students who live on the Range do so because it gives them the opportunity to meet people from other fields and to contribute to the University at large.  For example, many residents participate in events such as the Lighting of the Lawn, or host receptions for colleagues in their rooms.

The Range is the antithesis of the typical "graduate student experience" at most big research universities.  At a time when narrow specialization is the norm, the Range is a place where graduate students from all academic disciplines live together and interact.  Even in the 21st century, Thomas Jefferson's vision of an Academical Village is alive and well.

You can learn more about the Range, its residents, and its history by checking out the Jeffersonian Grounds Initiative.