University of Virginia Library

Greater Student Participation Sought

Panel Explores Community Action

A group of about 40 students
and faculty gathered in Jefferson
Hall Thursday night to listen to and
participate in a panel discussion on
"the relevance of community participation
to the educational
process."

The Raven Society sponsored the
discussion and the Society's president,
Russell Bloodworth, moderated
the panel made up of Burkett
Rennolds, Mayor of Charlottesville;
David Gunter of the Community
Action Organization; Stanley
Makielski, assistant professor
of Government and Foreign Affairs;
Thomas Bergin, Professor of
Law; and Paul Saunier, Director
of University Relations.

Mr. Makielski began the discussion
with some general comments
on students and the University:
"The University is not
an effort to segregate the student.
It is an effort to shape him the
way the community can't."

He felt that student participation
in the community was necessity,
especially in such a small
community as Charlottesville
where the University has more
resources and "brainpower" than
the city and also because students
live in an artificial world.

Mr. Bloodworth said that he
thought there was a great deal of
academic validity in student work
in the community. He thought
that such involvement should be
encouraged by giving students
credit for such work because otherwise
many students would not have
the time to participate in community
projects.

But Mr. Bergin pointed out that
the University's primary purpose
was to give students training and
education they could not get in
the community.

Mr. Gunter asked him if "living
in the community was educational?"

"Yes," Mr Bergin replied, "but
you can get that anywhere and normally
one doesn't get a degree after
four years of living in the community."

Mr. Saunier said he was pleased
at the attitude of students participating
in the Raven discussion because
it was a pronounced change
in "student participation in the
community of past years."

He pointed out that any plans
for student action had to come
from students because "they make
up two-thirds of the University
Community. He added that the administration
would help students
in any way possible to communicate
with City Council officials
over community projects.

Mr. Saunier noted that "our
faculty are more involved in a
pleasant way in the community
than any I've heard of."

He said that it was in large part
due to this faculty participation
that efforts to postpone the Grady-Gordon
expressway achieved some
success.

"We don't want to destroy the
excellent individual relations with
the community in search of a
larger, more structured relationship,"
he added.

No decisions were made at the
discussion. But Mr. Bloodworth's
suggestion to have credit given for
community work was taken up
by Mr. Bergin who asked Mr.
Saunier "to inform the administration
that some students and
faculty would like to see an administrative
unit created to coordinate
student-faculty community
efforts."