University of Virginia Library

Question of Responsibility

When asked by Council member Marya
McDermott if he did not consider it his
responsibility to see that all students admitted
to the University would also have sufficient
housing available to them, he replied that no,
he did not consider housing (beyond that of
first year students) his responsibility.

The role that the University would play in
the immediate future in seeing that its newly
increased student body was adequately housed

was made all to clear by Edgar F. Shannon,
President of the University, in a special Student
Council meeting last year.

In 1969 empty rooms still abounded in the
dorms, but by 1970 people were waiting in line,
some for as long as two days, to get dorm
rooms. Last year the Housing Department
resorted to a lottery system as the most
equitable way of distributing the limited
number of rooms and suites.