University of Virginia Library

Phil Chabot

Library Of Administrators

In my last column, the issue
of Rotunda Restoration was
dealt with lightly.

Yet it is all true. According
to my sources, the President's
office will be moved to the
Rotunda and there will be an
elevator built in the 'restored'
Rotunda.

It is far from funny.

One could object to all of it
on the simple grounds that
there has been no public
discussion on these decisions.
It has been an administrative
and secret decision — now,
perhaps, too late to stop.

The real tragedy, however, is
that we are watching the slow
death, of open University
governance; prompted by men
who acted from good
intentions.

The general trend was set in
motion a decade ago. With the
expansion of the University
and subsequent
bureaucratization the authority
of the faculty was slowly
whittled away.

The University Jefferson
established, run by faculty
living and working closely with
students, has been made over
into a University governed
almost totally by
administrators. These
administrators, too often, view
students and faculty as an
inefficient aspect of an
otherwise well-oiled machine.
In their view the product of
that machine is not educated
persons, but diplomas.

Only the symbols of an open
system of University
governance remain. They, too,
are slowly being obscured.

Important University
committees, for example, give
the appearance of cooperative
decision-making. In reality
they are often controlled by
administrative control of the
information upon which
decisions must be based.

Gradually, more and more
decisions are being taken out
of the jurisdiction of such
committees altogether.

The conversion of the
Rotunda into an administrative
office is a fitting symbol of the
final triumph of the
administrative bureaucracy.

The Rotunda, which started
as a student and faculty
library, is now a virtual
museum. It will soon be an
office.

We have already seen
expansion. We are seeing classes
turned into offices to fit a
numerical formula. There will
soon be 11-story dormitories
and high-rise parking garages.
We will probably soon be put
into a more "efficient" 13-week
academic calendar (the role of
academics are barely
considered when faced with
"more powerful" arguments like
average square toot per student
per hour daily use quotas.)

Does anyone care?

The University of Virginia
was once very popular as an
oasis of good sense among a sea
of statistically minded state
universities. (The peculiar
qualities of the Cavalier
student not included, of
course.)

No more.

Does anyone care?

There seemed to be a time
when people did care. There
was once a possibility that
students and faculty could
have gotten together, formed a
University Senate, and finally
established a legitimate
structure of University
governance that controlled the
administration rather than
permit itself to be controlled
by it. But the faculty was
disorganized and the students
allowed themselves to be led
down the path of
"communication" cliche
mongers.

Now the Rotunda is going to
become an administrative office
building – only a symbol of
what has happened to us all.
But the students have a bus
system, and the faculty have
high salaries, and nobody really
cares.