University of Virginia Library

The Grumbling Hive

For the benefit of those who haven't
noticed, overcrowding on the Grounds is
reaching critical proportions this fall. To use
the words of Walter Winchell, "Things are
very, very bad. They will get very, very much
worse." The reason seems absurdly simple:
growing enrollment has not been met with
comparable increases in available facilities.

The squeeze is most notable in the shortage
of classroom space. Students in course after
course have arrived to discover a crush of
bodies spilling out into aisles and even into
the hallways. Professors attempting to add
students in excess of the authorized
enrollment are likely to find they cannot get a
lecture room or laboratory large enough to
accommodate the group, at least not at the
class's scheduled meeting time. One history
instructor appeared in Maury Hall the other
day and found his course sought after by at
least 30 percent more students than expected.
Unable to relocate at the scheduled hour
(9:30 a.m.), he decided to reschedule his
class for 8 a.m. rather than disappoint the
extra students. Now everyone involved is
certain to be less than pleased.

Another case is that of Biology 31, a
physiology course required for all pre-medical
students. In the past the course was offered
only during the fall semester, but because of
overcrowding and the shortage of lab facilities
a second semester version of Bio 31 will force a
number of premed students into the
precarious bind of taking as many as three
five-hour science courses in the same
semester. Clearly this will not do.

Today is the last chance to add a course.
However, if the experience of the past few
years is any guide, a number of well-placed
pleas and complaints from students unable
this far to get into the necessary classes
should assure a postponement of the deadline
by the dean's office. If you are in this
nightmarish predicament, make your problem
known to your dean and a solution may be
possible even now.

An answer to the larger crisis of
overcrowding will not be so easy. The problem
extends to all aspects of daily life: traffic
snarls around the University, unprecedented
line waiting for books and food, as well as the
shortage of decent housing. At every turn
there are signs that any talk of further
expansion is pure madness without due
attention to the need for new facilities and
more efficient use of existing buildings. If
more students are to be admitted every year,
new faculty will be necessary at a rate faster
than that now in practice. Moreover, present
instructors must be expected to take on a
larger work load, opening additional sections
of existing courses instead of merely packing
so many members into a class that students
must sit on the floor or simply not attend at
all.

The crisis needs no magical solution. The
factors are physical, concrete and subject to
analysis. The consequences of unplanned
growth, however, are psychological and go to
the center of the University's life-its purpose
and its quality. If indeed we may expect to
find 18,000 students here by 1980, it seems
certain we've had but a taste this fall of what
the future may hold.