University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Counselor Pay: Returning The Favor

Thank you for spending the
time to comment on my
"Counselor Remuneration Survey".
I accept some of your criticism as
valid, but some as a result of
misunderstanding.

The majority of my proposals
are not designed to "entice more
good students" into applying for
counseling positions.

I too feel there are intangible
benefits gained by being a
counselor. There are similar
benefits in most student service
activities, such as your position as
editor or student council members.
The intangible benefits which you
mentioned, are rewarding but not
in reducing expenses - a crucial
problem to many counselors.

It is also true that far more than
enough people apply for counselor
positions. The purpose of increased
benefits is to encourage people to
continue the enthusiasm which the
intangibles create in the beginning.
As is obvious to most people who
have lived in the dorms, counselor
enthusiasm dwindles as the year
progresses. It is increasingly
difficult to continue asking
counselors to spend more time on a
job when they are already
under-rewarded.

I cannot agree with your
contention that increased benefits
for dorm counselors will lead to
detrimental changes in the
counseling program. Has the
Cavalier Daily staff done a less
acceptable job since they became
salaried?

Please reread the report, you
will find that nearly all of my
recommendations are possible with
little outlay of funds. Meals are the
only suggestion of any financial
consequence. The job dictates what
the remuneration should be!

Many of the rules in Terms and
Conditions are if enforced,
beneficial to the student who must
live in the dorm e.g. due to
overload, the electricity in Lefevre
dorm has gone off ten times this
year. Towards this end, the
counselor can continue to be a
"friend" to both the student and
the administration.

Finally, what you state was a
threat, was only a final plea. If the
counselors are expected to do
excellent jobs on all undertakings,
they should be suitably
remunerated. It is unfair to ask for
more than they are compensated.

As we both have said, the
counseling program does perform a
service for the University. It would
be nice if the University would
return the favor, at least to some
degree.

Depopulation War

Regarding the mild controversy
over the CD's lack of support of the
"write Hanoi" campaign: I am
surprised and disappointed that no
one has pointed out the perfectly
good reasons you might have had
for refusing it publicity. This
campaign relies on the blatantly
racist premise that the well-being of
a few hundred Americans deserves
priority over the lives and future of
several million Asians.

It attempts to draw attention
away from the facts that the
importance we have placed on body
counts discourages the taking of
prisoners, and that we traditionally
turn over the prisoners we do take
to the care of the South
Vietnamese government. And,
worst, it is intended to made
Americans feel not so bad about
their own involvement in the Asian
War of Depopulation by making the
other fellows out to be the bad
guys.

Taken

It is the first week of school.
Standing in line for registration the
naive freshman is asked by his
counselor if he does not want to
purchase a copy of the "all new"
Corks and Curls. Well, ah..yeah. It
must be important and.., "sure." He
then signs a left-over 1969 contract
for the new book.

As the year progresses it
becomes obvious that the yearbook
is of primary interest to seniors.
When one asks a member of the
Corks and Curls staff about this he
is comforted with the reply, "How
else can we get enough money?"

So it is late afternoon of March
1. You receive a letter full of verbal
garbage about their concern for
your past happiness during the
year, etc. Oh! And guess what! You
owe us $10.00. Remember the
binding contract? So you go to the
office of the Corks and Curls and
explain the unfairness of the
situation to the Business Manager.
He replies, "Haven't you ever been
taken before?"

Cop-Out

In his proposal for personal
withdrawal as a means of ending
the war, Mr. Ted Jordan is engaging
in a form of escapism available only
to the socially and economically
comfortable. Whether Mr. Jordan
admits it or not, his escape route is
closed to Blacks, poor white,
laborers, and the thousands who are
dying in Indochina.

Furthermore, as Julian Bond
pointed out, as long as a person
accepts any benefits from the
system - whether rock records,
beer, clothing, or even grass - he is
in the system. Communes and
collectives do not exist in a
vacuum. True, they exist on the
fringe of society, but they are
located on taxable land, are built
with manufactured wood products,
and are usually supported in some
measure from outside. The only
way one can withdraw is by leaving
the country and disengaging totally.

Thus, I submit it is impossible to
escape by simply declaring
ourselves not responsible for what
our system is doing to other human
beings. It is self-deception to seek
refuge by compartmentalizing our
lives. As the saying goes, "not to
decide is to decide."

What Mr. Jordan proposes is the
ultimate cop-out It allows one to
sound radical and yet do nothing. It
is a washing of hands. Meanwhile,
the racism, the sexism, the
oppression and the killing go on.

In a sense, Mr. Jordan merely
reflects an increasingly prevalent
attitude. The inability - or
unwillingness - of the system to
respond to its own self-proclaimed
ideals is cruising the idealism of
youth and leaving us with a
generation of cynics. Once pot is
legal, who will remember the
Vietnam dead, Fred Hampton
murdered in his bed, the
Appalachian coal miners, or the
students at Kent and Jackson
State? Who will care?

Wake up, young people. Your
cynicism is the ally of oppression.
If you are concerned about what
you are, stay and struggle. If rallies,
demonstrations, and strikes "come
to nothing," develop new tactics.
Withdrawal because you can't win
today or tomorrow is a guarantee
that you will never win.

Cheap Shot

With reference to your cheap
shot at the Young Republicans
(editor's response 2-25), must one
remind you that the place for
scathing editorialism in the Cavalier
Daily is the first two columns on
the left-hand side of page two?

While the C.D. is supposed to be
representative of all student
opinion (and may one suggest that
the newspaper is financed
ultimately by all of the students at
U.Va.), you have failed to be truly
representative in providing less than
adequate coverage of the "Write
Hanoi" campaign, as the Young
Republicans duly have noted.

Although the editors of the
student newspaper have a perfect
right to their own biases, and to the
expression of their opinions in their
editorial columns, it decidedly is
not their place to inhibit the efforts
of any student groups working for a
beneficent cause in any way.
Whether or not the editors feel the
"Write Hanoi" campaign is
worthwhile, they exceed the limits
of their editorial prerogative in
effectively deemphasizing the
Young Republicans' efforts at this
university by minimizing the
coverage of this project.

Regarding the tone of the
editor's response to the YRs' letter,
in which such references to
"another Young Republican
non-event" and "the usual dunning
letter" are strongly reminiscent of
Joe Pyne in top form, these
comments and such an attitude of
condescension surely cannot be in
the tradition of writing which has
made the C.D. a "First Class"
newspaper for a number of years.

I am not a Young Republican; I
do not subscribe to much of their
philosophy or approve of many of
their activities. I am, however, a
strong advocate of both objectivity
in reporting and the principle of
"equal time (and space) for all." I
feel certain that the Cavalier Daily
shares these attitudes with me, and
I hope that these principles will
find greater expression in future
issues of the newspaper.