University of Virginia Library

Legitimate Representation

Whenever Henry Doggrell and Tom Gardner
unite in support of a measure before
Student Council, one of two things is certain.
Either the motion has no substance, or if it
has substance, it is something with such wide
appeal to the student body that it cannot be
dismissed as just another issue cooked up by
activist students.

Such was the case at the Student Council
meeting last Tuesday when Council passed
unanimously a plan that would allow it to
appoint the student members of the 50-odd
administrative committees that make many of
the decisions which form thy governance of the
University. The plan must be approved by
President Shannon in some form or another
before it can take effect.

In the years since students have been
allowed to sit on administrative committees,
appointments have been made in a rather
slipshod manner due mainly to the way in
which Council has gone about submitting
names. Last year was the first in which Mr.
Shannon and his assistants had enough
recommendations to fill the positions available.
Even last year, however, the names were
submitted so late, and in such a disorganized
fashion, that the job of filling the vacancies
was made even tougher.

The Council plan, if approved, will
accomplish several things. First, it will
hopefully allow the students to pick students
for committees on the basis of interest and
potential to contribute to the work of the
committee. In past years, when forced to
haphazardly supply names, Council members
tended to nominate those who were already
known for their work in other activities.
These people often had no particular interest
in the committee to which they were
appointed and often had little time to devote
to its work because of the commitment to the
activities which made them "eligible" for
selection to begin with. Council would set up
machinery to process applications for committee
work from students who may have no
other qualification than interest and ability,
qualities which were often overlooked in the
past selections. Obviously enough, students'
are going to be more willing to state their
cases to the Council than they were to apply
to President Shannon.

Secondly, the proposed selection process
would insure that students got legitimate
representatives; on the committees. In the
past, students have been appointed to posts
on important committees such as the Future
of the University who no more represented
student opinion than did the faculty members
and were under no sanction to attempt to
present student opinion to the committee. If
they are appointed by Council, it is reasonable
to expect that students who indeed represent
the opinions of their fellows will be chosen.

A lot of opposition to the Council plan
comes from the spectre, ugly to many people,
of student power; but the whole question of
whether students have an inherent right to
power in University government is not really
relevant to this question. In the first place, no
matter how the students who sit on the
committees get there, they are outnumbered
by faculty and administrative representatives.
No matter how radical or power hungry the
students might be, it is unlikely that they
could get committee approval for anything
that wasn't acceptable to faculty and
administration interests as well. Second, the
committees have no real power in themselves;
their influence comes from Mr. Shannon's
general practice of accepting their recommendations.
Even if students were to
somehow take over a committee and decide to
do something detrimental to the University,
Mr. Shannon could squelch the effort simply
by refusing to accept that committee's
recommendations.

Even so, there will be many people who
will oppose the idea, solely because they have
grown distrustful of students and their
intentions toward the University. We hope
that Mr. Shannon will refuse to be swayed by
their alarmist and reactionary arguments. We
hope that he will work with the Council to set
up a system along the lines that it has
suggested.