University of Virginia Library

Shannon Modifies Role
Of University Committee

—Ed.)

The Committee on the Future of the
University is a standing administrative
committee of the University. Its responsibility
is to assist the Board of Visitors, the President
and the Dean in planning the University's
future academic development. The Committee
annually should study immediate and projected
conceptions and planning concerning the nature
and scope of the University, identify emerging
trends in higher education, and make
recommendations to the President and the
Board of Visitors concerning the University's
possible role in these developments.

Enrollment Estimates

More specifically, I charge the Committee
this year to make a thorough study and
evaluation of enrollment estimates through the
academic year 1980. The Committee should
seek to determine the University's enrollment
in order for it to continue its academic
improvement, bearing in mind its obligations to
the Commonwealth. It should also, in making
its recommendations for the next academic
year and the years immediately ahead of us,
consider the physical facilities available or
expected to be available to the University such
as housing, food services, classrooms,
laboratories, libraries, offices, transportation
and parking. In its long-term estimates of
enrollments the Committee must pay primary
attention to academic considerations, which
may have to be modified by physical and
budgetary exigencies as they can be foreseen or
develop.

Steering Committee

The Committee on the Future, through the
Steering Committee already established, will
maintain regular lesson with the Master Plan
Committee, the Housing Committee, the
Lambeth Field Committee, the Traffic and
Parking Committee, and the Committee on the
Environment. The Committee on the Future
will draw directly upon these Committees for
information and guidance in their particular
areas of expertise. The recommendations of
these Committees will be vital and essential to
the recommendations of the Committee on the
Future.

I also ask the Committee this year to
amplify the existing feasibility study
concerning residential colleges to be located in
the Birdwood tract and to make
recommendations dealing with such matters as
the students that should live in these colleges,
the relationships students and faculty residing
there should have to the rest of the University,
the best mix of "living and learning" for these
colleges, and the general nature of the
curriculum to be pursued in them.

The Committee should not hesitate to
address itself to other matters that in its
opinion are central to the educational
development and welfare of the diversity.

I am grateful to you and the Committee for
undertaking this demanding task.