University of Virginia Library

Evasive Answers

In discussions I had at
University Night with Dean
Titus and his assistant Terry
Dan I was very much
impressed by their
single minded evasiveness and
unswerving dedication to
convince the students to which
they spoke that their overhaul
of first-year housing was right.
Unfortunately, I was not
impressed by the fact that I
never got a direct answer.
Trying to get to the truth was
like trying to pull teeth (to use
a hackneyed expression).
Despite Dean Titus's insistence
that there will be no
substantial changes, there will
be many changes, basically in
attitude.

What has not been fully
explained is that the duties of
the Resident Staff
Coordinators (graduate
students) will be strictly
within the Student Affairs
Office. They will live in the
dorms only as remuneration
for their services. Thus, Mr.
Titus has created a
bureaucracy confined to his
office which will plan
activities, which, in effect, will
contain very little student
input. This involves
considerable consolidation and
centralization of functions
into the Office of Student
Affairs. Such centralization
has never been accompanied
by a decrease in power and
control.

Mr. Titus could not control
the Resident Advisors. If he
had been able to, he would not
have considered them an
"expendable luxury". He has
solved his problem by
eliminating his most effective
opposition. Mr. Titus's rhetoric
about "Under-graduate input"
(to which he referred
constantly during our
discussion) is just that:
rhetoric. Undergraduates,
not having
the experience, could not
possibly oppose him as well as
(former) Resident Advisors.
The upshot of the whole
system is that there will be
more relatively inexperienced
people than at present, people
who will obviously be more
willing to "toe the line".

Mr. Titus told me that the
quality of the resident
assistants (counselors) will not
change, but those
independent-minded people
who disagree with the system
will not be interested in
becoming resident assistants,
in which case the quality of
people in such positions must
deteriorate.