University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Army Editorial Corrected,
Called True To Experience

Although the general nature of
yesterday's editorial "The Army's
Duty" is correct, several factual
corrections should be made. First,
if I had been found guilty and
dropped from the program, I would
have been drafted, but in June, I
have no reason to believe the ROTC
department would have requested
my board to draft me "right away."
Secondly the only statement which
was discussed was the "Oath of
Commission" which every officer
must sign prior to his commissioning.
The examining board made
no specific mention of "the Army's
interpretation" of the Constitution,
but did ask me if I would support
"the average man's" interpretation.
Considering the ambiguity of this
phrase I agreed I could support it.
Aside from these corrections, I
believe the editorial represents the
true nature of the experience.

High School Racism

I would like to call the attention
of faculty and students to an
extremely disturbing situation in
the Charlottesville public schools,
with special reference to the Walker
Junior High School. At the present
time black and white students there
are coexisting mutual terror of one
another and of the faculty and
administration who in turn appear
to be intimidated by students,
parents, and outside organizations.
Racial and class epithets are exchanged
with increasing frequency
and physical attacks are a daily
occurrence in school and on school
buses. Permanent expulsion of
"troublemakers," daily locker
searches, and petty harassments
have been adopted as preventive
measures which any
adult would rightly consider violations
of his civil liberties.

The faculty insists on ignoring
obvious class, racial, and generational
antagonisms of which verbal
and physical assaults and "insubordination"
are merely the symptoms.
This conflict will continue to
escalate in spirit of efforts to ignore
it or to attribute it to individual
"troublemakers," and in spite of
public relations efforts to minimize
public awareness of the situation.
The key to this situation is
recognizing it for what it is and
beginning serious efforts at removing
the sources of both real and
imagined grievances. For any public
institution which does not meet the
needs of the people it is supposed
to serve is doomed to destruction.

Name Withheld by Request

Militant SDS

For those who are not yet
convinced that the Board of Visitors'
recent efforts to find other
"representative students" than
those the students choose to
represent them, i.e. Student Council,
combined with their interest in
supervising the content of the
Cavalier Daily, herald an assault on
the basic liberties of those whose
beliefs (political or otherwise) the
Board does not endorse, we should
like to offer additional evidence:

Last April, Council granted SDS
a modest $49 to purchase varied
literature and films of interest to
students, to be distributed or shown
free of charge, Eight months later
(but only a month before the
Board's latest maneuvers), a student
challenged SDS' right to funds and
the Student Activities Committee.
weighted with puppets of the
administration, revoked the funds.
A tie vote was broken, interestingly
enough, by Dean Alan Williams,
who of course voted no. SAC found
SDS to be "Political" under an
incredibly vague section of the
regulations on organizational allocations,
and refused to reconsider its
action (Dec. 4) even after Council
redefined the term (clearly exempting
UVa. SDS) and SDS made a
determined effort (even rewriting
its constitution) to comply with
even the Committee's sudden new
limitations. Why? Why eight
months?

SDS needed the funds and bent
over backwards to comply with the
rules. It didn't help. If the administration
wanted a more militant
SDS, it has one now. The heat
is on and it's time to fight or have
your opinions decided by sixteen
relics from the Stone Age. SDS will
fight.

Gardner's Tangent

Tom Gardner, as usual, has gone
off on a tangent - this time in his
description of the GE situation. His
article could just as easily been
written by the head of local 124,
United Electrical Workers Union.

I question whether Mr. Gardner
has examined both sides of the
strike. Possibly he does not want to
face the fact that the union leaders
may be misleading the workers.
After all, I believe the union leaders
get paid their regular salary even if
the workers are on strike.

There are several inaccuracies in
Mr. Gardner's column (such as his
presentation of Boulwarism) that
are too involved to discuss in a
letter to the editor. I hope in future
columns Mr. Gardner will examine
both sides of an issue closely before
advocating something as drastic as
refusing to buy a company's products.

Could it be (heaven forbid) that
GE's proposals are sound and fair,
and the union leaders are putting
on a show to build up their image
with the workers? GE has said it
will bargain with the union and
change its proposals if new information
put forward by the union
justifies the changes, but GE will
not give in to the union just to
build up the union leader's image .
GE does care about its workers.

Curriculum

As with most such discussions,
the debate over curriculum revision
is being conducted at two different
levels and the meaning of the rift
between the two different
viewpoints needs to be explored.
Professors make a solid conceptual
argument for being liberally
educated, (and we must forgive
professors for living in a world of
conception), and they are correct in
principle; and students claim that as
requirements stand, the program
does not necessarily constitute a
liberal arts education, and they are
also correct.

It would seem that three points
in particular are important in this
argument . The first is quite
fundamental and involves the
difficulty of defining what it is to
be liberally educated. Traditionally
it has meant only that one should
have contact with diversified areas
of knowledge, and still be ignorant
as desired of the workings of the
society one lives in. It is the
definition of a liberal arts education
in terms of course requirements
that is being critically evaluated and
found lacking. The structure is not
producing the desired goal.

Why this is true is the second
point. The content of these courses
is obviously not designed to
produce the conceptual result
professors talk about. To site the
persistent emphasis of science and
languages, it is quite obvious in a
world of CBW and instant
communication that we need to
know about our scientific
accomplishments and various
cultures. Yet, courses in these fields
are prepared to grind out majors to
go to graduate school, and not to
produce understanding in a person
taking his last course in these
areas. If professors would cease to
pursue professional honors and
worry about what it is to be an
understanding and knowledgeable
human being, they would
understand this point. As has often
been said, knowing how to
conjugate a verb does not tell us
what German culture is all about,
and memorizing scientific
structures or formulas does nothing
for someone trying to understand
the meaning and value of science in
our society.

The third point is perhaps most
important, and goes to the essence
of what a college degree means.
Because it was so thoroughly
honored as a prestige symbol,
before the academic world was able
to define degree requirements as
they desired without any dissent, as
the attainment of the degree itself
becomes an accepted goal.
However, students have started to
realize that four years in college is
their only real chance to
understand the nature of life and
the forces that effect it. That is, the
college education is no longer a
means to economic success, it is
viewed as a means to
understanding, and it must be
shaped with that in mind. If
professors understood that, they
would not scoff at demands for
relevant courses, but respond
enthusiastically to the desire to
learn, which they are always
claiming is nonexistent. This is all
to say that professors are defining
course in terms of structural
content, and students are defining
them in terms of educational
content