University of Virginia Library

Multi-University Suffers From Numbers

The second ill-effect of a multi-university
is the process of numbers.
Numbers beget numbers. As
the size of the student body grows,
faces and names of undergrads become
meaningless. The IBM monsters
take over the individual life of
each incoming first-year man. Even
concerned instructors cannot stop
the number mushroom from growing.
Many introductory courses
have doubled or tripled within the
past few years.

But student numbers equal money,
and the administration exists
on a monetary basis. More and
more funds are needed for construction
of new, bigger, and costlier
buildings; funds are necessary
for the hiring of more faculty; and
funds are essential for financing
new teaching assistantship programs,
the latter mostly oriented to
the introductory courses.

As each department takes the
teaching assistantship step, the dye
is cast and the doors of the multi-university
machine open wide to
capture as many incoming new
numbers as possible. Of course, the
process of numbers is a gradual
change, but the end result is that
eventually all undergraduate introductory
courses operate like a factory.
It becomes virtually impossible
for an undergrad to communicate
with a faculty member in such
a course, and even upper division
courses "feel" the numbers game.
Only a few, "lucky" grad students
really get to see and converse with
their instructors. Interestingly
enough, when combined, a serious
by-product of these two processes
is departmental empire building,
already evident on the grounds.

The second notable change at
Virginia in recent years is over the
matter of excellence. All universities
are raising their academic standards
and entrance requirements.
When I was an undergraduate student
in 1959 a C average was
considered a good norm. Now parents
hit the ceiling when sonny
boy's report shows a raft of beautiful
IBM C's. In the late 1960's it is
a simple fact of academic life that
at least a B average is necessary for
any kind of graduate work, and one
had best do more for entrance to a
professional school, or a good business
position.

As academic competition becomes
fiercer at all levels and receiving
some type of award becomes
the measure of ability, then
never receiving an A grade or a
prize scholarship, etc., becomes a
stigma. And then the "grade phobia"
takes control. It is a bitter
lesson of life for an undergrad to
learn to adjust to things we can't do
as to those things we can do.
Unfortunately, not even in this era
can every undergrad be summa cum
laude material.

This insistent obsession with
grades is seen throughout the University,
and grows keener as one
enters the professional schools.
Rarely, if ever, does the conscientious
undergraduate sacrifice an
overnight assignment for an evening
out with the boys, or a trip down
the road. I believe this to have been
a wholesome attitude, this willingness
to sacrifice a bit of excellence
along one narrow line for the sake
of a broader purpose. But today the
pressures of the draft board, parents,
administrators, and even
friends dictate what an undergrad
must do.

One of the most difficult tasks I
have each semester is trying to play
down the emphasis of grades in a
course. I am rarely successful, for
both student and instructor are
caught in the academic system. I
have penetrated as far as convincing
undergrads that any course can be a
personal challenge, regardless of
academic ability.

Even in a large introductory
course, where professors still do the
teaching, it is possible for each
student to develop his own likes
within a given framework. Each
student gets the necessary guidelines
and pushes along the way.
With such an emphasis a student
forgets, or at least suppresses, concern
over grades as he becomes
more engrossed with his topic. Hard
study is fun if it were not for the
incessant reckoning that has to be
made gradewise.

What can be done about these
problems, I frankly don't know.
However, I do have some suggestions,
for what they are worth. The
University need not become another
multi-university; it can cling to
some grand academic traditions in a
spirit of change. I suggest getting
rid of the factory image trend by
introducing first and second year
seminars, smaller lecture classes, tutorials,
more independent study for
those able to profit from it, and by
offering credit for community service
projects which take the student
off the grounds to right the ills of
Charlottesville society. Virginia
could be a model university when it
comes to local community action.
Already there are a few cases of
such a healthy trend in architecture,
medicine, and law.

The University must begin to
pay more attention to the individual
student as a person, to offer
him an education more sensitively
adapted to his preparation and to
his progress through the curriculum.
Many students - both undergrads
and grads alike - feel that
there has not been an adequate
connection between their education
and what they feel to be their
primary concerns as human beings
and as citizens. The University
needs, as never before, to make the
relationship clearer, and to replace
those course offerings that may
have through obsolescence lost
their contact with major issues of
the day.