University of Virginia Library

Ave Atque Vale

It has been a most peculiar year, the one
which ends today for us. To be a student in
the spring of 1971 is in so many ways a
unique experience. We have been through a
period in which the mainstream of national
protest was accepted by University students
who could only have been left embittered by
the results of last May. The war which
prompted the strike has since celebrated its
tenth birthday and seems no closer to an end
than last year at this time.

This year there were no demonstrations,
only the most feeble protests against the war
and its symbol, the President. He is a man
regarded with bitter hatred by many but
accepted rather fatalistically by the majority
particularly the draftable who can only
sit in bewildered silence while he manipulates
their futures. There can be something brutal
about a university's teaching its young people
to be alive, aware, critical, independent, and
free while at the same time one reads of
events in greater society which indicate that
the outside world would prefer your
conformity to your independence, your
acquiescence to your capacity for critical
thought.

The malaise which began on campus has
spread, and there seems to be a consensus
among the young and old that the nation has
fallen on bad times, morally if not
economically, spiritually if not physically.
This malaise is felt acutely among the young,
perhaps because they were not hardened by
the depression and the ensuing war, nor have
they become enamored with the material
things which we as a nation seem to pursue.

And so the current generation of students
has become rather cynical about the course of
the nation. They have become concerned with
happenings occurring not in distant Southeast
Asia or Washington but here in Charlottesville
where the events of last May did produce
some good. Students and administrators seem
to be talking now for the first time. This
community has never been more diverse nor
more united in its goals. There hasn't been as
much friction between its various elements as
in years past, even though it has been a year
which has seen the addition of some 350
young women to the first-year class, a Board
of Visitors which thought that student
responsibilities needed clarification, and a
new concern over the burgeoning size of the
University.

It has been a year in which students went
outside the classroom to supplement their
education through such means as the Madison
Hall volunteer program or the Experimental
University.

It has been a year in which we have caught
a glimpse of the "New" University, and
although there will be much more confusion
and turmoil before this place is noticeably
different from the school we and our fathers
knew, this new and different University does
not look all that bad. It will never, of course,
really be new. The University has a rich
heritage which cannot be ignored.

In a time when events in the nation and
world are cause for pessimism we note a
certain guarded optimism on the Grounds, a
feeling that the ideals of the "old" University
can be happily united with the intellectual
advancement of the new.

Because there is something unique about
the University it is easy for a student to form
a lasting affection for it; we should be certain,
however, that this attachment, however
strong, is never uncritical because this school
is entering a decade in which it and its
purpose will be severely challenged and
perhaps altered for the worse. For this school
has never accomplished its first duty — the
education of students — in a better manner.
This place is becoming an exciting place
intellectually — a process that has been
reflected, we hope, in the pages of The
Cavalier Daily — and is at last living up to the
ideals of its founder.

Despite all of the shortcomings of our
generation, the majority of which is as
unconcerned and stolid as their parents were,
we feel there is enough good will and talent
among the rest to do a great good for this
country.

We feel that this University has ahead of it
a Golden Age of sorts, an era which is only a
short step away. It has been an educational
experience in itself to chronicle and comment
upon the past year of this University's
experience. Ladies and gentlemen, it has been
our pleasure.