University of Virginia Library

Colloquium

Peculiar Crisis

The faculty, too, has its in-roads. In the College, there is an acute
problem of loyalties with regard to the undergraduate curriculum. As the
College is presently divided, a professor's first responsibility is to his
department - that amorphous academic entity that makes his teaching
assignments, recommends him for promotion, and determines his salary.
Since the department is both the "boss" and the locus of the professor's
academic field, his work (both in teaching and research) must meet
departmental interests and demands. And since the department's resources
depends on the number of students it handles, its interests lie in
perpetuating a strong graduate and undergraduate-majors program (with
emphasis on the former).

These facts tend to enslave the professor to the department's needs. He
must "publish-or-perish" to please the department (rather than of his own
volition), since the department's interest is in attracting majors and
graduate students. There are no rewards for teaching or caring about
teaching; that sort of concern can only be incidental to pleasing the
department.

The vicious cycle, an internal departmental phenomenon, tends to
discourage a faculty loyalty to undergraduate students, especially to those
who are not majors in the department. Hence, the survey course (a la Am.
Govt. ) that relegates the student to a passive role in the educational
process. Hence, the emphasis on graduate education to bolster the
department (only at a high cost to the undergraduates' education). Even if
genuine attempts are made to offer the undergraduate more attention
(which is often the case), either by the department itself or by individual
professors, the department framework still works against any substantial
improvement. There can be no real logic for an undergraduate curriculum
if the department scheme is based on a graduate education.

The trend here is to develop the department on the basis of graduate
needs. Increasingly, the department displays a "lag-along-with-the-graduate-level-pace"
for undergraduates, so that less sophisticated
approaches by professors are harder and harder to implement. The most
conspicuous example of this trend is in our Government and Foreign
Affairs Department. To lesser degrees it is becoming evident in other
departments as they expand.

This is not a criticism of the scholarship necessities in the professorial
ranks. But there should be a distinct undergraduate approach. Faculty
loyalties should be freed from departmental disciplines. "Publish-or-perish"
is a valuable standard for graduate education, but in a university the
curriculum must be contoured to both groups of students. Rewards for an
interest and a dedication to teaching undergraduates should play a part in
professorial rank, so that faculty can attend to undergraduate needs
without suffering economic consequences. A curriculum evaluation, such as
the one we have conducted, could serve as a valuable measure for judging
devotion to teaching, should be established for inter-disciplinary and area
studies programs. This would cut down on the departmental control over
professors and allow them to pay more attention to students. Faculty
loyalty, if it should be attached anywhere, should be to the "college," and
indirectly to an organized undergraduate program. The departmental
organization tends to drain off the individual professor's ability to show
concern in his undergraduate teaching, since its priorities demand
allegiance to values outside the scope of undergraduate education.

Furthermore, the faculty (as a group) should be more of a force in
effecting change in the structure. There is actually no faculty organization
free of to the administration. The faculty has no real and distinct
power base in University "politics." With unity, the faculty (acting as an
autonomous body could work as a "swing group" between student needs
(and requests) and administrative sluggishness. In such a manner, the
faculty could accomplish its own internal changes in the College structure
where the administration fails to respond with necessary sweeping changes.

The Administration is undercutting the curriculum on a subtle, though
ominous, level through an elaborate committee bureaucracy, amply
staffed with faculty members. The committees purport to "run the
University," but actually are all tied back into President Shannon's office;
the President and his administrative assistants make the decisions. Upon
faculty realization of the hollow nature of these committees, mutual
feelings of distrust and suspicion can easily develop. The result, of course,
is a breakdown in academic atmosphere and enthusiasm in the classroom.

What is needed, then, is a massive effort on two fronts. First, and most
important, the University administration must indicate genuine moral
conviction to support student and faculty concern on major issues (such as
the draft or community action in local racial controversies). Secondly, the
Administration must liberate the faculty from its iron vice - give the
faculty some genuine power to reform itself. Only then will confidence be
restored in the Administration's actions. Only then will the Administration
appear to be working with educational, and not legislative, objectives.

If our observations and conclusions are even partially accurate (and we
feet they are painfully accurate); then the next logical step should be a
professional analysis of the University's peculiar crisis. Such an
investigation requires a full-time faculty member (perhaps on emergency
sabbatical) who is familiar with the intricacies of the College curriculum
and paid to conduct research and make feasible recommendations for
change. The success of similar evaluations at other state universities
(especially that at Rutgers University) offers an example for the University
to follow.

If the University of Virginia is to become a "leading" university in the
future, then we must attack the problems at her core. The undergraduate
curriculum in the College of Arts and Sciences (and its ramifications) is the
conspicuous target.