University of Virginia Library

Preface

"Thinking About Birdwood" is a rambling 11,000-word
memo to the deans of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Like most memos, it has an extremely informal
style—perhaps is a bit caustic in places—and like many a train
of thought, it may leave the reader variously infuriated,
ecstatic; or bewildered if he stops somewhere before the end.
Caveat lector, therefore: If you start reading, better plan to
finish.

The memo was written in bits and pieces between early
August and mid-October, following an expedition on July 28
to look over parts of the Birdwood property west of town, an
event arranged for deans and several other interested faculty
and students. That in turn, was stimulated by the
announcement in late May that the University would request
planning money and a bond authorization in the 1972-74
biennium to begin work on residential colleges at Birdwood.

The memo is addressed to my colleagues in Dean Cauthen's
office in the belief that the academic deans ex officio bear
some responsibility for aiding the planning of any new aspects
of undergraduate education at the University. Planning begins
with serious discussion of goals, and discussion can often be
furthered if people have a specific model to be stimulated by
and to react against.

It should be noted, however, that this memo has no
authority and does not represent the views of any office or
committee or group, or any individual other than the author.
Nor is it intended to imply a lack of concern by other people
for our development of residential colleges. It is simply an
early contribution to what I hope will be a thorough and
productive consideration of a complex matter.

Distribution of the memo took place in late October, at
which time a few extra copies (some 50) were run off and
provided to various members of the faculty and student body
whom I knew personally or ex officio to be interested in the
residential college concept or in the use of Birdwood. These
included some members of Student Council and of The
Cavalier Daily editorial staff, as well as all members of the
Birdwood subcommittees of the Housing Committee and the
Future of the University Committee.

Distribution was accompanied by a request for response
and criticism, the memo being an effort to lay out some lines
of discussion and to propose the examination of educational
values and starting premises. Respondents so far have taken
the request seriously, the result being that I have had my
thinking enlarged already by several sheets of comment from
various individuals. The editors of The Cavalier Daily claim to
have found this memo valuable enough to print for the entire
University, and I am gratified by their request.

The reason is that Birdwood offers us the chance to create
something truly brilliant, an honor to the imaginative founder
of this University as well as a felicitous environment for men
and women of the late twentieth century. If worthwhile ideas
are generated by this paper, so much the better for all of us.

And so much the better for architecture and education in
the United States generally, since we should keep in mind that
a project of this magnitude will be watched with interest and
judgment by a great many people quite outside of the
University.

Despite my enlarged thinking on certain points, the memo
will appear in The Cavalier Daily pretty much in its original
form, with paragraphs numbered for the convenient reference
of respondents. What new ideas I have derived from the initial
responses are not incorporated into the present paper, though
supplementary points of my own are stuck in at two places
without upsetting the original numbering.

It should be stressed that the paper is not in any way a
comment on the Student Council report of October which
deals with Birdwood. I did not see that report until after
finishing my own paper, and I have not talked with any of the
Council members regarding Birdwood while they were in the
process of formulating their conclusions or writing them up.

Worth keeping in mind during the reading of this paper and
the reacting to it is one central point, fatuous as it may sound,
regarding our planning of a residential living-learning situation
at Birdwood or elsewhere: The only thing required of us is
greatness. Why should we bear the reproach of doing less?