University of Virginia Library

Transitory Body

The student body is necessarily
transitory, changing from year to
year. Nor does the wisdom of
student leaders always match their
own conviction of infallibility. For
these obvious reasons, the role and
responsibility of students can never

equate that of faculty,
administration, or trustees.

And yet student views are
entitled to be voiced and seriously
considered. Appropriate channels
must be devised to accomplish this,
along with a far greater effort to
make these channels meaningful.
The wise administrator will work
these out, with faculty and student
participation, in advance of campus
trouble. All of this must have
substance, and reflect a genuine
desire to reach accommodation
with responsible student views.

But it must ever be remembered
that no such program, however
reasonable, will mollify the radicals.
Their objective is revolution,-not
reform...... The hope must be not
to placate the radicals, but to build
a broad base of support among
students in the mainstream of
campus life.

Another frequently voiced
grievance relates to the
faculty .....Erwin N. Griswold,
Solicitor General of the United
States and former dean of Harvard
Law School, spoke recently of the
violence at Columbia and its
toleration by so many faculty
members. Dean Griswold expressed
my own deeply held views when he
said: "The only persons for whom I
have more contempt than for the
student groups which created the
discord are the faculty members
who lent support to them."