University of Virginia Library

After-Effects Of Strike Crucial To Council's Role

an anger over the bureaucratic
red-tape that inevitable gets in the
way of many of its actions.

Last semester, when Edgar F.
Shannon, President of the
University, sent a letter to the
Council asking for them to submit
the newly-ratified constitution for
his customary "approval," many
Council members bristled at the
idea, and, after considerable debate,
sent the constitution to Carr's Hill
for his "acceptance," but not his
approval.

In less dramatic confrontations,
the Council has coordinated the
efforts of the Student Curriculum
Evaluation Committee, which
publishes an evaluation and guide
of courses in the College; it pressed
for coeducation and all the
necessary changes that such a
course would inevitable require; it
published a report on student
rights, and maintains watchful
vigilance against infractions by
either other students or the
administration; it co-sponsored
with WUVA radio station the John
Mayall concert to raise funds for
black recruitment, and has fought
for increased black enrollment.

It has revised dormitory
regulations for upper-class students
and has attempted to provide
greater self-determination for
first-year students. Through the
efforts of the Council, first-year
students were only recently given
the opportunity of have cars on the
grounds second semester, providing
they have a 2.0 average.

According to Mr. Mannix the
upcoming year may be the real
turning point for the student body.
An increased student activities fee
has given the Council an additional
$50,000 to approbate after all the
normal student requests (The
Cavalier Daily, student clubs and
committees) are met, and this will
provide the body with funds to
pursue its aims with a little more
than vacant pleas.

The after-effects of the spring's
student strike may well be crucial.
The strike was organized outside
the Council, and, as Mr. Mannix
notes, The only distinction that
the Council's official endorsement
of the demands made was that it
required Shannon to formally
reply. "President Shannon turned
to the Council to negotiate for calm
but the course had become largely
irrelevant.

"The Council has neglected its
role in relation to social issues," Mr.
Mannix says, although more
conservative members of the
University community would argue
that it has already got too far in
that realm. Yet last semester's
referendum, in which almost 70 per
cent of the students voted to strike
against the war, the Kent State
killings, and the Cambodian
invasion, and a majority against
several other issues, will
undoubtedly have an effect on the
course of action.

Yet, even with the seemingly
overwhelming approval by the
students for a continuation of
recent stands by an increasingly
liberal Council, the generally
conservative Jefferson Party took
five of six College seats that were
up for election at the end of last
semester, with the remaining seat
going to a candidate of the
liberal Virginia Progressive Party.

No one is quite certain how the
JP managed their tnning upset,
but some pin the results on the
poor voter turnout that the taend
of the strike offered. Nevertheless,
even the more conservative
members of the Council are not
always hostile to change, and often
display a tolerance that their
counterparts of years ago would
have decried ad downright liberal.
"I believe we'll never again have a
conservative Council," says Mr.
Mannix, "never again one that
won't want to fight with the
administration."