University of Virginia Library

By Robert Rosen

A Prospectus For The University

Mr. Rosen, a fourth-year man in the College, is best
known as the founder of Rapler Magazine. He is currently the
magazine's publisher—ed.

—Albert Camus

—Mr. Jefferson

It has been noted frequently in the state of Virginia and
to a lesser extent in the rest of the nation interested in such
things, that the University of Virginia can be counted on to
keep things cool in the midst of nation-wide student
"activism." Quietly vegetating in the cool valleys of the Blue
Ridge Mountains, Thomas Jefferson's antebellum
architectural wonder (the students add a dash of color, too,
what with their lovely coats and ties) can be counted upon
with certainty to stand aside from the issues that are burning
America. Watchers of the local scene were reassured late last
year by the effluvial writings of Henry J. Taylor. Mr. Taylor,
a widely-read columnist and commentator passed on to the
nation the conventional wisdom in regard to the
Charlottesville academy. Said he, President Shannon simply
would not tolerate student "misbehavior," under any
conditions.

It is irrational to over-react to the oblivious Mr. Henry J.
Taylor. But my reaction to his journalism and the point of
view he represents is very violent indeed. The man who best
expressed how I - and how hundreds of more "free thinking"
students - feet about the issue of "student activism" was none
other than Thomas Jefferson, local Founder, Sage, and (by
the way) Revolutionary. "When this idea comes across my
mind," wrote Jefferson on the subject of the Barbary pirates,
"my faculties are absolutely suspended between indignation
and impatience." The Henry J. Taylors, and our present day
caricatured Virginia Gentlemen out of some mythological
past, are in for a shock because, unbeknownst to them, the
spirit of "Mad Tom" Jefferson is quietly eroding the
conservative foundations of the thinking of our generation of
Virginia men. Having lost his grip on this University some
time in the past, Mr. Jefferson is seeking to reclaim what he
wrought.

It is fashionable in "liberal" circles at the University to
lament the death of Jefferson, "the real Jefferson," that
radical American so despised by the "proper people" of his
day. It is a widespread, much-discussed irony that this very
University, created by the "infidel propagandist" has become
a bastion of southern conservatism. It would not be so ironic
if Mr. Jefferson were somehow quietly ignored, but it is
rather too apparent that he is not. President Alderman once
noted the phenomenon: "You cannot speak of Mr. Jefferson
around Charlottesville," he said, "without feeling that he is
about to turn the nearest corner. It is a pungent form of
immortality that now and then almost gives one a turn." The
local deity is quoted by the Administration, the President,
the Student Council, the Honor Committee, The Cavalier
Daily, and by various candidates for various offices. "It may
be confidently asserted," wrote Joseph Seawell Jones,
anticipating our dilemma, in 1834, "that the whole range of
history does not exhibit any instance of baser subserviency,
not only of the many, as individuals, but of the nation at
large, - than the over-powering influence of the mere name of
Jefferson." Mr. Jones, presumably, would be most
uncomfortable at the University these days. Because, by the
strange twisting of fate, a Radical's university has become a
nest of reactionary thinking.

The University of Virginia's history is probably a bore,
and is quite irrelevant to our problems today, but it is of
interest symbolically to mention one incident that took place
here only twenty-five years after Jefferson's death. The
religious question had always made the institution a target
for the more puritan of our brethren, i.e., the revivalist sects,
and because the University was condemned as "godless" (for
Jefferson's beliefs were quite his own and quite unorthodox),
a student campaign to build a monument to the founder was
defeated. So the real Thomas Jefferson was dropped as a
meaningful symbol quite early. It is no phenomenon of our
age. The University's history, of course, is not something to
be taken lightly. The University of Virginia has always held,
after all, a certain place in the hearts of Southerners, but
what that place is now is subject to debate. W. J. Cash, in his
monumental "The Mind of the South," probably gives us an
accurate impression of the University until only very
recently:

All of this just goes to show how things change, how
institutions grow - or decay - to fit the times. Today, of
course, the University has become a twentieth century state
university. We have witnessed "progress": the building of
science complexes, modernization of dormitory facilities,
greater emphasis on education, less on alcohol - even among
students. But still, Virginia remains essentially "outside the
mainstream" of American university life. Issues such as the
Vietnam war do not reach Charlottesville until years after the
rest of academia. The "Civil Rights struggle" still goes on at
this university because we have not reached stage one; there
are not enough black students amongst us to discuss Black
Power or to shout "Black Power" or to demand
Afro-American history or African culture. In short, we have
battles to fight here that have been fought or are about to be
fought in every major college and university in the nation.
The nature of our student struggle will be unique. It will have
a tone and (if I may borrow a word from Life) a "dialogue"
all of its own. The reason for this is Thomas Jefferson, an
important symbol to all American students, most particularly
to us.

Mr. Jefferson was a revolutionary and a radical. Not only
was he a revolutionary and a radical, but he was perhaps the
most "far out" radical of America's revolutionary generation.
Quotations from Jefferson can border on the terrifying...to
the little old ladies of the D.A.R. or the Virginia Flower
Society. Even Bartlett's Familiar Quotations does him some
stice:

—To Madison, 1787

—To Smith, 1787

—Ibid.

One should not get carried away with this sort of thing, of
course. It could be argued that Mr. Jefferson was only
fooling, or that he got overheated. Madison, in fact, felt it
necessary to apologize for some of the Sage's writings. Said
he, "allowances...ought to be made for a habit in Mr.
Jefferson, as in others of great genius, of expressing in strong
and round terms, impressions of the moment." After all,
Jefferson's name might be used to sanction (dare we print
it?) civil disobedience or mass demonstrations or a student
strike or even...a Columbia-style rebellion. Jefferson, that
pallid portrait of historical amusement, that insipid, nearly
mythological Founder, a cause of a voice for, radical change
at The University? My word. What has happened to the good
old days when Jefferson knew his place? As in the 1920's,
when "Secretary of State Frank B. 'Nervous Nellie' Kellogg...
said that while Jefferson was a great man and all that, his
ideas were dangerously radical." (I'm quoting University
Professor of History Bernard Mayo's book "Myths and Men.")

The good old days are still a bit too much with us. The
nature of our universities are good examples of out-of-date
institutions. The university in America today is not a place to
dump members of the upper class for a four-year source or
merely a set of buildings in which to train future professors.
It is a new and growing phenomenon of our age: it is a small,
sometimes not so small, community, an "academical village"
become an academical city. The university represents a large
percentage of our population - the most intelligent, the most
vigorous, affluent, and most disfranchised. In short, the
university situation has changed. The era of the Silent
Generation is gone. The question is how will our institutions
begin to change, not if they will begin to change. Colleges
today are not merely havens for panty raids - not even this
university. Colleges are larger and larger communities of quite
able citizens deprived of controlling their own lives. Now to
those of another generation, this may sound very strange,
indeed, the concept of someone else controlling a university
other than Deans, Trustees, and other mystical personages.
But the change exists...in attitudes, in the force of events, in
who holds the power to determine university structure - in
the end.

The University of Virginia is now a community of over
9,000. It is governed, controlled, and regulated by what
percentage of the 9,000? Who determines what the
University shall do, what policies it will adopt, what projects
it will undertake (whether, for example, we - as a community
- develop germ warfare or help improve the education of the
poor in Charlottesville). This university, like most American
universities, is a strange phenomenon in this regard. The
intelligent and vocal college populations simply cannot help
to determine what direction their own communities, i.e., the
University of Virginia, will take. The essence of the problem
is democracy. And the Father of American Democracy
founded this university...

The University of Virginia is not a democratic institution.
It does not represent itself as such. As a result, the
University's direction is determined by Trustees, who are
neither students nor members of the faculty, who do not live
in the University community, who have little connection
with the daily life of the community, whose roles are not
unlike those of any undemocratic rulers'. In a letter to The
New York Times in May 1968, a Mr. J. P. Jordan, a Columbia
University graduate student (not in S.D.S.and over 30) who
intellectually at least supported the rebellion, discussed
democracy in the universities. His ideas, it seems to me, are
helpful to us in Charlottesville. One should bear in mind the
meaning of "Mr. Jefferson":

The issue is one of making law - or "governmental"
arrangements - go hand in hand with the reality of changing
institutions. If the University of Virginia was, at one time, a
fashionable four-year party, then the students should have
been controlled, not given the responsibility of controlling.
But if the University of Virginia is a community of scholars
and students, then things are poorly organized. Human
institutions are not eternal. Someone once wrote about the
earth belonging to the living. The living are beginning - even
in Charlottesville - to want what belongs to them.

Any program to "revolutionize" the University would be
naive, because "revolutions' build on a series of disruptions,
which have yet to begin (but which I am confident will begin
this Year), because a revolution determines its own issues,
symbols, vocabulary as it grows, a process not easily
"devised" years in advance. The process to democratize the
spiritual home of America's great democrat will be a long
one. It probably will lag behind the rest of the nation, and
parts of the South. But it must begin and it will be our good
fortune, I should imagine, to witness a beginning of sorts this
year.

I hesitate to label the following modest proposals a
"program," firstly because critics may label it a "blueprint
for revolution," which I would appreciate, but which would
prove embarrassing, as it is quite incomplete and too general.
Secondly, I would rather not find myself in the same
category with Walter Hines Page, who, according to C. Vann
Woodward wrote, "Human society needs constructive
management" and made a memorandum "test it slip his
mind." What follows is only suggestion.

It would seem that the first stage in any change in the
structure of any society would be the vocalizing of
dissatisfaction. This stage of events began with the
appearance of the more militant Virginia Weekly on the
Grounds. The Rapier, I would hope, advanced the Cause. The
Cavalier Daily has begun to step up its intellectual
"participation" in the affairs of the "outside world," as well
as take longer looks at the University itself. Needed on the
Grounds is a liberal organization more widely based than the
SSOC to further discussion of dissatisfaction in areas other
than the press. Perhaps a more appealing chapter of the
Students for a Democratic Society can be organized: the
Jefferson Chapter. Perhaps, a student-faculty forum type
organization can be strengthened in addition.

Secondly, there is a need for demonstration. Critics can
usually rummage through their minds and come up with the
argument of "demonstration for the sake of demonstration,"
but like the Henry J. Taylors, these people can be given a pat
on the head and rolled back into the closet. There is a need
for demonstration because this is a form of redress which is
improperly understood on the Grounds. It would be a lesson
in "current events," if nothing else, for our less tolerant
fellows. But I would hasten to add that the first large-scale
demonstration should vocalize demands that, while seeking
change, command respect in literate circles. The civil rights
struggle, if it can properly be called that now, is by far the
best cause for our purposes, as well as the most deserving of
agitation locally, i.e., within our community, the University.
Demands for greater black enrollment are usually met with
silence or answers such as "all Negroes who apply are given
equal consideration with whites." But, while all that is very
true and would have been decent in 1958, the time for
put-offs and excuses is long past. It is 1968, a year of riot,
rebellion, near insurrection. The blacks of Virginia need this
University. It is not a question of academic niceties. It is a
question of whether or not the students and faculty of the
University of Virginia, those who are this community, will
stand for idle chatter in the face of the nation's greatest
social problem in its history. It is a question of whether we
will determine to enroll next year two or three or four
hundred Virginia blacks in order to do our share as an
academic community in beginning to solve our national
problems. This is not a question for the Trustees from New
York, Orange, Norfolk, and the insurance companies or apple
orchards of Virginia. It is a question for those of us who live
and work here. Mass demonstrations tend to help
communicate this idea to an Administration not always
interested in our opinions.

The University must become accustomed to dissent. This
is the importance of the demonstration. The students and
faculty must begin to understand power - less in terms of
genteel letters to the Editor than in terms of decisive steps
taken to put power into the hands of the faculty and
students themselves.

The conservatives of Jefferson's times said of
Jefferson, "No matter what evil invades the land, what
dreadful ruin breaks up our institutions, what disgrace
attaches and leaves its foul spots on our character, all may be
traced to the damnable policy of Thomas Jefferson." Were
we to apply to Jefferson's academical village his own
democratic spirit, our own local conservatives might have
cause to repeat these words. For, once we accept the obvious
fact that the nature of the University has changed, that the
men and women at this University do not need, will not long
tolerate "regulation" by the Administration, we readily look
to the oldest of American traditions, to Thomas Jefferson.

The organization of the University is not, of course,
subject to an annual vote. The process of democratization
will take a long time. At present, though, we might begin to
move in the right direction by fighting for a number of
causes. The first cause is student control of student affairs,
and this means Student Council control of Student Activity
fees. The Student Council may be a joke at present, but once
its power increases, its importance and prestige will also. The
second cause is an all out attack on every vestige of the "in
loco parentis" philosophy. The Administration is not a four
year chaperon. In practical policies, this means fewer rules
in regard to female visitors, especially in areas such as the
Lawn or the upper class dormitories where there is no
justification for such rules whatsoever. Those whose function
it is at a university to play Scout Leader ought to find their
jobs missing next year. The Scouts need them. The
Administration should even be barred from making a fool of
itself, such as when Dean Runk's edict on marijuana was
handed down. More importantly, policies such as this - which
imply that the University takes offense at one's personal
activities off the Grounds - must be done away with. In a
more positive vein, students ought to begin to investigate
ways of bettering student life in areas where the
Administration has been negligent: a student cooperative
bookstore should be established by the Student Council this
year.

Hopefully the day may be dawning when students and
faculty will have the opportunity to pass judgement on what
transpires on the Grounds. It is a matter of concern to us if
the Defense Department is developing germ warfare in out
community. We may like the idea; we may detest it. But, at
least, the community, rather than the invisible Trustees, can
pass judgement. What is important is that the idea of
community responsibility for germ warfare development
becomes more widespread. It is our community, not the
grey-haired men's, who live in Norfolk or the Bahamas Islands.
We have more right than they to demand to know what is
going on - secretly or openly. When I say "we," of course I
don't mean a student mob fraught with "outside agitators." I
mean committees of responsible student leaders and faculty
members who speak for us rather than for Governor Godwin.
I stress the civil rights dilemma because this is a policy which
we must change, hopefully by discussion, probably by
peaceful demonstration, perhaps by riot. I hesitate to sound
melodramatic, but in the final analysis I consider the
Administration's/Trustee's policies invalid because they do
not represent this university. Things can change peaceably
here. It is possible that an enlightened Administration will
deal fairly with legitimate student proposals and that
moderation will prevail. It is only when men panic at new
thoughts, when men clamp down on demonstration rather
than try to come to terms with the demonstrators that
so-called "riots" occur. The University of Virginia has a very
valid "tradition" in Thomas Jefferson; it is the tradition of
revolution, of change, of the earth belonging to the living not
the dead. Unfortunately the University has not become what
Jefferson hoped it might, the great center of learning for the
New World. But it has the chance now to lead other
American universities away from the past, away from the
kind of insensitivity that created the Columbia University
rebellion. Mr. Jefferson, the Revolutionary, could - for a
change - look without tears at his creation.

John Adams died five hours after Thomas Jefferson on
July 4, 1826. Adam's last words, "Thomas Jefferson still
survives," were - unbeknownst to him - quite untrue.

Those local antiquarians who insist that Mr. Jefferson still
survives at the University of Virginia are, like Adams, badly
advised. But Jefferson may yet survive. The University of
Virginia can begin to become true to her heritage. It will be a
long struggle.