University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Comp Editorial Inaccurate

Your Feb. 25 editorial on the
"example" of the English Department
loses its force as accurate
summary and as persuasion by
succumbing to an oligarchical
theory of university history. Your
stress on the "personal factor" and
"small groups of influential and
tenured personnel" misrepresents
both the nature of the department's
decision and the flexibility of the
Undergraduate Chairman. We decided
to make comprehensives
optional, not because the Undergraduate
Chairman's absence
cleared the way for a vote, but
because there has been a genuine
change in the department's judgment
about the effectiveness of the
examinations. The reason "there
was never even a majority vote in
favor of doing away with them" in
the past is simply that there was no
vote at all; until the College Faculty
voted to eliminate the uniform
requirement for comprehensive
examinations, the issue could not
even arise in the individual departments.

It was with some concern that 1
read The Cavalier Daily's editorial
of February 25th, in which the
competence of Mr. Ralph Main,
Acting Director of Housing, was
seriously questioned. As station
manager of WTU-FM, I feel that it
is only fair that I describe to your
readers some of the dealings that
our station has had with this fine
man.

Let us examine your accusations.
You insinuate that Mr. Main
enforces housing ordinances with
staunch inflexibility and flagrant
disregard of the circumstances surrounding
particular cases. Could
this be why Mr. Main has repeatedly
denied our members permission
to paint the now grimy walls of our
studio? After all, why shouldn't the
rule that "students may not paint
their dormitory rooms" apply to
the staff of a county-wide broadcast
radio station?

You also claim that Mr. Main
gives too little consideration to the
personal welfare of the residents
that his decisions affect. Nothing
could be further from the truth.
For instance, we have often entreated
the Housing Office to have
more station keys made for us,
inasmuch as their dearth has caused
our sign-on announcers endless
difficulties. Though Mr. Main has
refused our every request, and even
went so far as to personally collect
every key blank of this type in
town in order that no one else
would be able to make them for us,
I am sure that you are overstating
the case.

We have also requested the
Housing Office to replace the trash
can which once stood outside our
studies, inasmuch as our operations
produce a prodigious amount of
waste materials. Though Mr. Main
has ignored this request for the past
several months, I am sure that he
intends to rectify this situation
someday.

Can anyone seriously doubt the
competence and responsibility of
this dedicated individual. mm.

Last year a student was aroused.
From his sleep by the common
desire for titillation. Being uninformed
and thus not having heard
the tails of Dixie News, he travelled
to Alderman Library in search of
some good, clean filth. He discovered,
however, that the volumes
of pornography known to exist
there were locked up on the 5 - M
floor.

As Liquifactionists, we are
naturally concerned about the welfare
of the common student. It is
this desire to promote the welfare
of the Library as a hole that
motivates us in this matter, not any
desire to impugn the so-called
morals of any of the librarians.
Therefore we feel compelled to
reveal the following facts, which
originally led us to the conclusion
that all the sex books were in the
5-M section:

(1) Not a single member of the
University community has ever
been admitted to the 5-M floor and
been heard from again.

(2) Many of the porno books
listed under the obscure topic of
"Literature - Immoral" in the card
file, are in the HQ600-HQ800
range. These books cannot be
found anywhere in the non-5M
sections of the library and have not
been checked out.

(3) The 5-M section is fortified
so that no one other than library
officials can get to it.

(4) Library officials have from
time to time hinted that all the
porno books are in the 5-M section.

These facts naturally led us to
the conclusion that the sex books
are locked up in the 5-M section. In
The Cavalier Daily we were, therefore,
quite shocked to read that the
5-M section contains Arabic farm
books. As this issue is quite
important to all of us, we hereby
request the formation of a Blue
Ribbon committee to inspect the
5-M section and report its findings
to the student body. This committee
should be composed of outstanding
members of the University
community (.i.e.o., the president
of the student council, the president
of the university, the emperor
of the Liquifactionist Party and
Birth Control Club, and Tom
Gardner).

In the meantime, we leave you
with the following questions:

(1) If the 5-M section contains
Arabic farm books, why all the
tight security?

(2) If they aren't in the 5-M
section, where are all the sex
books?

(3) Could it be that stricter
security measures are necessary to
prevent the librarians from accumulating
their own bedside collections
at the expense of the rest of the
university?

I would like to nominate Mr.
Tom Gardner to be Director of
Drama here at the University. In his
recent incident with Mr. Herring,
Mr. Gardner displayed his admirable
talents and qualifications for
this new position. First, he seems to
have a really unique ability to
create fiction - the lines he comes
up with for his characters, particularly
the villains, are brilliantly
original, not to mention dramatic.
Second, his little drama has a nice,
simple black and white conflict so
everyone is absolutely sure who is
right. Third, and perhaps most
important, he has a very sympathetic
press - witness the fact that
his letter to The Cavalier Daily was
500 words long and their limit is
300 words. Also, since The Cavalier
Daily critic who reviewed the
drama was not sympathetic enough,
Mr. Gardner proved that he is his
own best critic too. He's the only
producer I have ever heard of who
had that privilege. It must be nice
to interpret his drama for the
public, so they get it straight, as
well as producing it in the first
place. I think everyone can see
from these points that Mr. Gardner
really deserves to be the new
director.