University of Virginia Library

D. Al

People who have dealt with him only
through his assistants or his public statements
call him either "Mr. Williams" or "That
*******" (fill in your favorite epithet). Up at
our offices, he has, as long as we can
remember, been affectionately referred to as
"D. Al." Now, there is nothing derogatory
about that, although the affection has waxed
and waned over the years, to be sure.

At risk of making this a eulogy (for D. Alan
Williams is alive and well and will be teaching
history full-time), we want to reflect a little
on his years in Student Affairs now that he
has decided to move from Dabney House
back to Randall Hall.

When we got here in 1969, you had to
hate University administrators. It wasn't
simply a case of them deserving student
animosity, although they sometimes did, but
it was even de rigeur back then to call them
fascists. If an administrator tried to do
anything, he was opening himself up for all
sorts of vicious charges, because everyone
knew he was dishonest, and his real motives
were, by definition, perverse. D. Alan
Williams, as Dean and Vice President for
Student Affairs, was especially vulnerable to
these attacks, and he presided over some of
the true low points in student-administration
relations.

He had a tight grip on his domain, and
we still wonder about his power over
students' futures (remember the alleged secret
list of drug u). During the strike days of
1970, he and all other college administrators
throughout the nation were sitting on a
powder keg, and they knew it. It required
some delicate fence-straddling and finesse to
keep universities going and their students alive
in those days, and D. Alan Williams proved
quite adept at it.

Times have become more peaceful since,
and we would like to think it is because
students now realize they can deal with "the
establishment" (as administrators were called
then) like rational human beings, but we are
not yet sure (could it be apathy?). Regardless,
Student Affairs remains an active and
controversial part of the University, and D.
Alan Williams is still there handling all manner
of student problems and concerns.

During his two terms as an
administrator, he has been a conservative
when universities were becoming relatively
radical, but he has quietly helped engineer
some sweepingly progressive reforms,
especially in the residential side of student
life. He has been perceptive, occasionally
devious, but mostly intelligent and
even-handed in his dealing with students. The
genuine progress this University has made in
updating its philosophy toward students'
personal lives is in no small measure a product
of his efforts.

We have dealt with him perhaps as much
as any students have, and while we have
occasionally emerged from his office
somewhat perturbed and frustrated, we must
frankly admit that the positive clearly
outweighed the negative in his tenure as Dean
and Vice President. We wish him nothing but
the best for his return to full-time teaching.