The Cavalier daily :: Thursday, December 5, 1969 :: University of Virginia Library

Due to what Acting President Frank
Hereford agreed was a gigantic and
unfortunate misunderstanding, Bud Ogle
and Paul Hurdle, President and Vice-President
of Student Council, will not be
allowed to meet with the Board of
Visitors at its meeting this weekend.

In place of the Council officers, Mr.
Hereford, at the request of Frank W.
Rogers, Rector of the Board of Visitors,
invited Whitt Clement and Ralph Feil, Chairmen
of the Honor and Judiciary Committees,
respectively.

Policy Misinterpreted

Apparently, the misunderstanding concerning
the Board's invitation to Messrs. Ogle and
Hurdle arose due to a misinterpretation on the
part of Mr. Ogle of the policy concerning the
invitation of Council officers to the Visitor's
meetings.

Mr. Ogle said yesterday it was his understanding
that the Council officers had a
standing invitation to the meetings of the
Board's Student Affairs Committee and that it
was naturally assumed that the officers would
attend those meetings unless they specifically
declined the invitation.

The Council President said that he reached
this assumption since the Board, upon the
recommendation of President Edgar Shannon,
had changed the policy concerning student
invitations to the meetings.

Mr. Ogle said that, under the former policy,
President Shannon regularly invited Council's
President and Vice-President "if they showed
interest. I assumed that we are always invited
and the invitation accepted unless we reject it."

Mr. Hereford said yesterday that in his
invitation to the officers, he asked that they
give a response, either positive or negative, to
Norma Lane, President Shannon's confidential
secretary. This he said was the policy for all
invitations and that he himself had to make
such a reply to the secretary when he was
invited to the meetings by President Shannon.

Mr. Hereford said that he was asked by the
Rector of the Board, Mr. Rogers, if the officers
had replied and that he had not received a
positive answer from either officer. Mr. Rogers
then told him to invite the Chairmen of the
Honor and Judiciary Committees instead.

Never Accepted

Mr. Ogle admitted yesterday that he had not
replied affirmatively but said that he thought
that such a reply was not expected. He
explained that he felt a letter sent by the
Council to Messrs, Rogers and Hereford, among
others, made it clear the body desired its
officers to attend the meeting as invited.

The Council letter was sent to the officials
in place of a letter from Mr. Ogle that would
have actually rejected the invitation. The
President's letter stated that the Council was
extremely dissatisfied with the Board's efforts
to communicate with students, implying that
the Board paid no attention to student opinion
anyway.

The letter sent did express Council's
dissatisfaction, but the actual motion concerning
the two letters said that "the Student
Council ask the President and Vice-President to
attend the meeting."

Mr. Ogle said that, since the minutes of the
Council meetings are sent to the Visitors and to
Mr. Hereford, it should have been clear that the
Council desired its officers to attend the
meeting and, thus, that the two did indeed
intend to go.

Substitute Invitations

However, according to Mr. Hereford, Mr.
Rogers decided to interpret the lack of response
by the officers as a refusal and instructed Mr.
Hereford to invite Messrs. Clement and Fell.

Mr. Hereford did so and wrote a letter to
Mr. Ogle, dated November 25, which said that
the Council's officers were not scheduled to
meet with the Visitors.

Mr. Ogle did not receive the letter until
December 1, after the Thanksgiving break, and
he immediately attempted to contact the
Acting President. The two met yesterday at a
meeting arranged last month by Mr. Ogle,
which he had set to discuss the agenda for the
meeting with the Board.

Mr. Hereford explained the events that led
to the misunderstanding and told Mr. Ogle that
he would see if something could be arranged.
He then contacted Mr. Rogers who decided
yesterday afternoon that the agenda was too
crowded, and that there was no way in which
he could fit a meeting with Council's officers
into the schedule this month.

Mr. Hereford said that he considered the
affair an unfortunate incident and that he was
confident that the Board would seek the
opinion of the Student Council at its future
meetings.

Mr. Ogle was not so restrained, saying that
he and the Council thought that this incident
showed that the Board was not so concerned
with the area of increased communication as
was the Council itself.

Mr. Rogers could not be reached for
comment.

CD Representatives

Charles Hite, Publisher of The Cavalier
Daily, and Robert Cullen, Editor, have also
been invited to consult with the Board of
Visitors at its meeting this weekend.

The two had been invited to an earlier Board
meeting in October, but, after waiting one and
a half hours past the time set for their
appointment, they left without meeting with
the Visitors.

Before leaving, the newspaper's representatives
left a message saying that they had
previous engagements but would be glad to
meet with the Board at a later date.

Originally, they had been invited to discuss,
as a letter from President Shannon said, the
feasibility of operating the newspaper from
advertising and subscription revenues rather
than fees, the legal liability of the Board of
Visitors for the actions of the newspaper staff,
and the advisability of considering the inauguration
of a Publications Board at the University.

"Also, there may be questions about the
degree to which the newspaper represents the
feelings of the entire student body, and the
obligations that a student newspaper feels
toward the student body, the administration,
the State and the nation."

Presumably, the area under consideration
during the meeting this week will include most
of these subjects.

Friday Rally

Coinciding with the Board's meeting, the
Virginia Council on Human Relations has
scheduled a rally for 2 o'clock Friday afternoon
at the Rotunda.

The rally is designed to show the student
body support for increased integration and
coeducation and for improved communication
between the students at the University and
members of the Board of Visitors and the
administration.

Cleaver Invited

According to an information sheet distributed
by the VCHR, Black Panther Eldridge
Cleaver, author of Soul On ice, has been invited
to speak at the rally. The VCHR refused to say
when Mr. Cleaver was supposed to arrive,
claiming that "for obvious reasons, the time
and arrangements for Mr. Cleaver's arrival
cannot be disclosed to the public."

Mr. Cleaver has not been in the United
States for some time as he has been indicted for
murder of a policeman. He reportedly has been
in Cuba and Sweden avoiding the charge.