University of Virginia Library

Mourning The Gut

Somewhere in that big university in the
sky, the Great Gut is lying in state. Once, the
Great Gut flourished in colleges and universities
all over the land. Whole football teams
survived with the aid of the Great Gut; he
came to the rescue of flunking students in
their time of direst need. At the University of
Virginia he was a figure so imposing that not
even the lengthened shadow of Mr. Jefferson
could entirely blot out his radiance. The Great
Gut became a University tradition, a tradition
that sustained other traditions which were not
entirely compatible to academic achievement.

The Great Gut had many aliases with
which he passed himself off in the University
catalogue. Some knew him as the School of
Education. To other deans in other schools,
he was the Classics Department; he was
Humanities 314, Architecture 2, or History
7R. Only in the quiet places where students
met to fill out their add-drop cards did he
assume his true identity - the Great Gut,
friend of the pseudo-student.

Regardless of the particular identity he
chose to use, the Great Gut retained several
characteristics that made him what he was.
Nobody ever flunked the Great Gut. He
required simply that the student present a
body in a desk to certify that he had indeed
learned something. Students who majored in
Great Gut never saw the inside of the library;
they had, at most, a single text for each
course, and there were never any research
papers. One of the most salient features of the
Great Gut were his examinations. The musty
depths of fraternity poodah files still occasionally
yield a treasure like one of George
Garret's English 58 exams. The enterprising
student who took that exam could receive 10
points for knowing the current feature at the
Barracks Road Theatre; if he figured out that
the answers to the numerous true-false
questions were all true, he could rack up
enough points to insure passage. So many
enterprising students sought entrance to
George Garret's class, in fact, that he
considered moving it to Scott Stadium.

Those days, alas, are gone. In these days of
adding and dropping, the search for the Great
Gut has become frenetic and fruitless. The gut
courses of today are but pale imitations of the
Great Guts of yesteryear. Students still huddle
together and pass the word about the
supposedly easy courses for the coming
semester. But the talk centers around offering
where "you can get a B if you do the work
and he likes you." A lousy B? Do the work?
The Great Gut must be rolling over in his
grave.