University of Virginia Library

In Loco Parentis?

By TERI TOWE

Perhaps, as a second year
law student who lives off the
Grounds, I should mind my
own business and stick to
music criticism, but I am so
appalled by the sudden and
unilateral decision of Chester
Titus and Ralph Main to
radically alter both the
structure and the spirit of the
first year resident counseling
program that I feel I have a
duty to speak out.

After all, back in the Middle
Ages, I, too, was an
undergraduate, and I remember
that during my salad days at
Princeton, there was a struggle
between students and
administration over parietals
and the ramifications of the
doctrine of in loco parentis.

In the end, the enforcement
of parietals became a dead
letter, and the Social and
intellectual atmosphere at
Princeton breathed a lot easier
for it. The Board of Trustees
and the administration had
finally come to the logical
conclusion that the doctrine of
in loco parentis, when applied
to college and post college
age-students, demanded an
interpretation different from
that which might be applied to
8th or even 11th graders.

Most sensitive parents
would agree that by the time a
child reaches college, he knows
right from wrong, he knows
right from wrong, he knows
what's moral and what's
immoral, an he is capable of
setting his own code of
conduct and acting
accordingly—Princeton's
acknowledgement of these
facts of life did not, of course,
mean that the campus turned
into a depraved, debauched,
anarchistic community.

The Board of Trustees and
the Administration had enough
faith in the students to be
willing to grant them the
benefit of the doubt, and they
felt, and justifiably so as it's
turned out, that Princeton
students could comport
themselves as ladies and
gentlemen without taking
advantage of others and
without a lack of respect for
the wishes and attitudes of
their fellow human beings.

Of course, the Trustees' and
the Administration's decision
didn't mean that the campus
police, the proctors and the
dormitory supervisors
disappeared, There is still order
at Princeton, but the proctors
the campus police, the
dormitory supervisors, and the
janitors have become, more
than ever, the friends of the
student body, not spies and
enforcers whom everybody
avoids like the plague.

When I arrived here a year
ago this past September and
first heard about the resident
counseling program, I
entertained hope that U. Va.
was up-to-date in at least some
areas, but the more I learned
from my friends in the dorms
and the more that I read in the
C.D. about the vagaries and
vicissitudes of the Housing
Office and the bureaucrats
therein ensconced, the more
dismayed I became. After all, I
had been told that U. Va. was a
Princeton in the South, and, in
a sense it is but along with
atmosphere and a good faculty,
there should be an
administration that is sane and
sensitive to the needs and views
of the student body and of the
faculty.

I don't believe that there can
be any doubt that Chester
Titus and Ralph Main are first
class bureaucrats. The revision
of the resident counseling
program presents so many
more opportunities to
capitalize on the housing
shortage in Charlottesville. Any
upperclassman who wants,
God knows why, to live in the
dorms, has to knuckle under to
the "conditions" set down by
the Housing Office or good old
Chester or Uncle Ralph can tell
you to go find somewhere else
to live. And pity the poor first
yearman—he has no choice—he
has to live in the dorms!

I don t blame Mr. Titus and
Mr. Main for worrying about
the morale in their dormitories,
morale is not dictated by
enforcing conditions, banning
waterbeds forbidding
percolators, and turning
janitors and maids into stool
pigeons and changing the
counselors and residents into j.v.
bureaucrats and enforcers
certainly will not ameliorate
the situation.

If there is a drug problem in