University of Virginia Library

Quality Education?

Misguided administrators in
their zeal for our educational
well-being have now brought us
expansion. The question is do we
now have that elusive, much sought
after, supposed concomitant,
"top quality" education? Methinks
not. Are we in effect the State's
largest diploma mill and proud of
it?

Students may not enroll except
in degree programmes. All efforts
are directed towards the degree
rather than the education. Faculty
are hired on the basis of degrees
and publications rather than
teaching ability and some of the
best teachers remain Associate or
Assistant Professors after twenty
years because they lack
post-graduate degrees and
publications.

It is all very well for the
Administration to point out the
higher national standings of
individual departments such as
English and History and attribute
this standing to the expanded
student and faculty enrollment.
Indeed, since 1962, chiefly through
the efforts of Fredson Bowers and
Edward Younger, these two
departments have risen in national
standings dramatically and it must
be admitted that their faculties
once again include men of national
prominence. But has the quality of
education increased when these
departments are on longer cohesive
units and when the faculty
members and students no longer
know each other on a person basis?
What is to be made of the fact that
fewer and fewer students are able
to claim that their education has
been a personal experience with the
teachers under whom they have
studied? And what is to be made of
the fact that students and faculty
alike pass each other on the
grounds with eyes averted, in mute
testimony to the demise of the
sense of community?