University of Virginia Library

Students Views Differ Here
From Those Across Nation

More students at the University
feel college administrations have
been too lax on demonstrators than
do students across the nation a
recent survey shows; but a larger
percentage of students here have
participated in demonstrations
before enrolling in the University
than have first-year students at
other schools.

A national survey by the American
Council on Education released
before Christmas shows that 59 per
cent of the first-year students at the
University feel that the nation's
colleges have been too lax on students
protests.

The council survey of colleges
and universities throughout the
United States, indicated that approximately
52 per cent of all
college freshman feel that colleges
have been lax in handling students
protests on campus.

The ACE, which questioned
entering freshmen this fall on subjects
ranging from demonstrations
to study habits, reported that more
than 28 per cent of the nation's
college freshmen said that during
the preceding year they has protested
either against the Vietnam
war, racial discrimination, or school
administration policies.

For the University, the ACE
figures show that of the 1,100
first-year men participating in the
survey, nearly 32 per cent indicated
that they had protested the war,
racial discrimination, or against
school administrations.

In contrast to these figures was
the much lower percentage of students
who estimated that chances
were good that they would participate
in demonstrations in the
future. An estimated 4.5 per cent
of the students responding on a
national basis answered affirmatively
and the corresponding figure
for the University was one per cent
higher.

On the academic side of the
survey, the statistics show that 77
per cent of the first-year students at
the University ranked in the top
quarter of their high school classes
as compared with the national
average of 66 per cent.

Seventy-seven per cent of
University first-year men indicated
that they planned to pursue graduate
degrees, which is 20 per cent
above the national average, according
to the ACE report.