University of Virginia Library

'IMITTEE COMMITTEE COMMIT']

Joseph H. McConnell, Rector of the
University, announced Saturday the
arrangement for the nomination of a
successor to President Shannon; it is not one
with which students should be pleased. The
opinion of the average student will be
channeled from a student committee to the
Faculty Steering Committee to the Faculty
Nominating Committee to the Board's Special
Committee. That is a four-step funneling of
student sentiment-through the faculty.

While the idea sounds efficient, it is, in
fact, no more than a poorly-disguised way of
indicating where the students' place is in
selecting Mr. Shannon's successor...at the
bottom of the heap. The views of the people
who account for the majority of the
University community–the students–are to
reach the Board of Visitors through a
four-step ladder of special committees, thus
virtually eliminating any direct input from the
students to the Board.

This arrangement is bad, but it appears
even worse when compounded by the fact
that the views of the faculty will be
ascertained through the same procedure with
only one less step in the bureaucracy. The
faculty committee has basically the same
charge as the student committee but it is
blessed with a subgroup which is to meet
directly with the Board Committee "from
time to time." In his letter to Mr. Shannon,
Mr. McConnell stated that, "it would be
helpful if the Steering Committee would
undertake the further responsibility of
regularly receiving the recommendations of a
committee of the student body..." The
wording of that request indicates that the
most the Board will grant insofar as the value
of student input is concerned, is that it
would be helpful if someone collected student
suggestions. Big deal.

The effect of this system of committees
reporting to committees reporting to
committees reporting to the Secretary of a
committee is to place the real choice clearly
and unquestionably in the hands of those at
the top. In other words, the idea is a neat
way of shutting out grass roots contributions
and handing the choice over to whoever has
the most political power.

Mr. McConnell went to great lengths to
outline for Mr. Rinaca how the student body
"will play an important role in the
nomination." Under the procedure he
subsequently described, student as well as
faculty opinions will have no contact with the
real power brokers in the decision - who could
just be Virginia politicians. Who is kidding
whom, Mr. McConnell?

What the whole thing boils down to is a
bureaucratic circular file into which the best
of men can be dumped while the Board can
always keep clean by claiming that some
committee or other decided not to nominate
those particular individuals. Does Gov.
Holton, who hardly ever sets foot in
Charlottesville, have to go through four
committees to make his suggestions known?
Does Mr. Godwin? Does Mr. Howell? The
answers are, of course, "no" because the
politics of power and prestige will lend to
their recommendations a considerably larger
weight than will be carried by the opinions of
students. The arrangement Mr. McConnell has
presented only aggravates an already
unfortunate situation where the presidency of
this university could easily become the
political plum of worn-out public officials or
politicized professors.

Mr. McConnell takes pride in presenting
the seven-member Board committee to the
community, indicating special pride in the
appointment of Donald E. Santarelli because
he is the youngest continuing member of the
Board. If this boast is meant to appease
students for their understandable anger over
the structure of the nominating process, it
will not be too effective. For Mr. Santarelli,
despite his age, is not exactly the most
representative spokesman for student
interests. In fact, he is probably the most
conservative member of the Board, and, from
his vantage point at the Justice Department,
he has not tended to look with much
sympathy upon the opinions and perspectives
of students in the past.

We hope that the Student Council will not
take being relegated to the minor leagues
sitting down. As we have said before, and will
no doubt be called upon to say again,
selection of the University's fifth president is
an opportunity students should not be forced
to pass up. If Mr. McConnell wants to shove
this bureaucratic maze down our throats, the
Student Council, whom he specifically called
upon to arrange the election of the student
committee, should respond with their own
plan, less caught up in committeephilia and
more conducive to furthering the interests of
students.