The Cavalier daily. :: Wednesday, May 14, 1969 :: University of Virginia Library

Attitudes within the academic community
regarding the University's proper role have
begun a disastrous polarization process. On one
side, there are the traditionalists, who continue
to see the University as a training ground for
the professions (only at a more elementary level
than the graduate schools).

This group, armed with its paraphernalia of
rigid departmental structures, elaborate major
programs and stringent degree requirements,
continues to emphasize scholarly endeavor
among faculty members and specialization
among students. On the other hand, our
increasingly vocal "radical" minority has
responded to an over-organized and often
downright reactionary ivory-tower approach by
demanding "relevance" in the University's
curriculum.

In establishment idiom, this means more
involvement (both theoretical and practical)
with contemporary social problems. Allied to
this is a total repugnance toward the "publish-or-perish
syndrome" of professional scholarship.

The goals of scholarship and social activism
are not mutually exclusive, nor are they
inconsistent with the purpose of a university.
But their presently developing extremes
threaten one of two possibilities. In the future,
universities may well be merely "knowledge
factories" whose sole function will be the
production of scholarship and research.

Or, conversely, they may be places where
students do not come to study at all, but rather
to formulate a political and social ideology. The
university would become merely a base of
operations. The effects of super-intellectualism
(under the guise of scholarship) and anti-intellectualism
(under the guise of social activism)
are equally deleterious.

The University must accommodate both
these concepts within its curriculum without
allowing each to negate the other. There is a
very real case to be made for professionalism in
higher education; but undergraduate schools
can no longer devote themselves exclusively to
that purpose.

Graduate schools are expanding ever more
quickly and are doing the bulk of the work that
undergraduate colleges did before the advent of
"crass informationalism." Undergraduate
schools, now, must create more opportunities
for non-specialization (without destroying any
specialized options).

They must preserve the old idea of
producing at least a few bona fide dilettantes
every year. Otherwise, they may soon become
mere super-high schools, replete with abundant
extracurricular activities, homecoming queens,
and very little real learning.

The academic departments in the College
are plagued by a rigid over-organization, within
disciplines as well as the overall superstructure.
This over-organization is characterized (in
varying degrees) by highly structured major
programs, by oversized introductory classes
which have created inefficient bureaucracies
(even within themselves), and by a conspicuous
lack of adequate interdisciplinary programs.

Inter-Departmental Competition

Compounding all these problems is the
overriding atmosphere of destructive inter-departmental
competition. All of these are
conclusions drawn from the premises of
individual student critiques of particular departments,
and it is to this criticism that we now
tum for more specific evidence of the
problems.

The physical and life sciences students
objected most strenuously to those departments'
introductory courses. Organization and
stress on technical proficiency is beneficial and
in fact essential to the study of a science even
for those not electing to concentrate in the
field. But why teach such mechanical expertise
without at least an equal emphasis on the
reasoning behind it?

Halfhearted Approaches

The Chemistry and Physics departments
have attempted to broaden the appeal of their
introductory courses by offering terminal
courses for those students who do not seek
further study in the field. Unfortunately
(according to the students polled) these courses
are often merely diluted versions of their
original models - halfhearted technical approaches
which advance neither mechanical
proficiency nor a basic understanding of the
philosophy and methodology of science.

What is needed, then, is not a difference in
the degree, but rather only the kind of science
course offered.

In most cases those departments which fall
under the general category of "Fine Arts"
suffer most acutely from a lack of physical
facilities and funds, rather than from spiritual
or philosophical bankruptcy. Yet necessity alone
is not the fundamental reason for these
departments' problems.

English Versus Drama

Equally significant is the apparent impossibility
of co-operation between the Drama and
English departments in a holistic approach to
dramatic literature. The fault may lie with
either or both departments; whatever the case,
it has created a dichotomous approach to
drama (as literature and as theater) which is, to
a certain extent, counter-productive. The Art
Department, too, was criticized by students for
two principle reasons: studio instructors' failure
to take account of less conspicuous students
(thus suppressing latent talent through nonrecognition
or embarrassment), and the department's
monstrous approach to "introducing"
Art History.

Art 1A, by its students own admission,
apparently carries all the faults of bureaucratic
education to their most absurd extremes.
Disorganization, depersonalization, and meaningless
rote memorization of facts are all
present in abundance.

History Department Lauded

That hybrid creature, the "social science" is
apparently best represented at the University
by its least scientific discipline, the department
of History. This department seems to have
made the most genuine effort to educate
undergraduates as well as graduate students - a
laudable effort which is most clearly indicated
in the department's opening of graduate level
courses to undergraduate participation.

The Sociology half of the Sociology and
Anthropology department was also highly
praised - largely because a concern for
contemporary social problems was equated
with "relevance" by student evaluators. Interest
was thus inevitably high in the first place, but
proficient instruction kept it there. Yet the
anthropologists in the department made little
effort to match their colleagues' wide appeal.

Readings in Anthropology were often at an
unnecessarily high level of technical scholarship,
and many non-Anthropology majors
complained of needless erudition in allegedly
introductory courses.

In the Economics department, the main
complaints were a superabundance of required
courses, within the major program - most of
which were tangential to the avowed goal of
study, the comprehensive exam. Closer correlation
between scholastic ends and means was
called for here.

In another ambiguous area, the "humanities,"
the English department was generally
praised, with two exceptions: the need for a
seminar approach to English'5 and the present
unavailability of graduate level courses to the
undergraduate student.

Enjoyable Seminar Courses

Yet overall, the department has made
admirable efforts to provide for attention to
individual student initiative, particularly in the
department's major program. In the Philosophy
department, a seminar method in several
courses has resulted in widespread student
satisfaction. This success by no means obviates
the value of the lecture course but unfortunately
most lectures in the department were
found individually wanting.

The Foreign Languages departments were
universally condemned - partly because they
owe a large measure of their existence to the
coercive influence of degree requirements upon
rebellious first-year minds. Yet even granted the
value of such requirements (a dubious proposition)
there is still much reform needed.

For example, the language departments
should attempt to use the language laboratory
for conversational training alone, rather than
the simultaneous teaching of conversation and
grammar. Students quite naturally found it
impossible to concentrate on both these tasks
at once. Intermediate level languages are
approaches as "literature in translation" - since
most of the work studies are available in
English, and most class discussion degenerates
into English as well. Students thus accurately
characterized such courses as French and
Spanish as "half-baked."

The solution would seem to be a concentrated
effort to insure more homogeneity of
ability within each individual class section, and
an extension of the terminal required course to
a full year so that the language as well as the
literary aspects of the material can be more
fully studied.

Math I Is Wrong Approach

The mathematics department, too, owes
much of its size to the required nature of its
first-year course offering - Mathematics 1 -
perhaps the most severely criticized course in
the entire College. The course purports to be an
"introduction to Calculus" - but it presents
fragmented and disjointed abstractions rather
than any coherent body of knowledge. Clearly,
even a course in basic business arithmetic would
be more profitable to the student than the
present approach.

This has been an admittedly sketchy
treatment of problems at the departmental level
in our curriculum. But the shortcomings within
the individual departments are both cause and
effect of a larger problem - the rigid
"departmentalization" of the curriculum as a
whole.

The failures of the College's departments
and of the major programs are inherent in the
unbending disciplinary lines of the curriculum
structure. Any measures to improve upon this
established bureaucracy (or even more complete
reform programs) will have to deal
squarely with this unsuitable arrangement.

(See REFORM, p. 4)