University of Virginia Library

Expansion: Time's Up

"University Tuesday" approaches with
members of the Student Council organizing a
series of actions designed to give an already
overstuffed academical village a taste of
future shock, before it is too late.

Next week's demonstrations, according to
the Council's statement of purpose, "will be
designed not to threaten or coerce anyone.
Rather, they will illustrate to all the burden
that will be carried by University facilities as a
normal future occurrence under current
expansion plans. These actions will show the
hardships to which many students already are
subjected. They will show these hardships to
be what they are: encroachments on the
academic excellence and integrity of the
University."

By deliberately taxing the systems now
available on the Grounds, the organizers hope
to show President Shannon and other
proponents of enrollment expansion the
potential consequences of growth without
concomitant attention to the critical need for
new facilities to handle the influx. So far, the
aims of "University Tuesday" have received
endorsement from almost twenty student
organizations including the influential
Executive Committee of Counselors and
ranging, left to right, from the Union of
University Students to the Young Americans
for Freedom.

Some will doubtless complain that the
Council's response to the situation at hand is
too radical to effect a reasoned
counter-response in Pavilion VIII. Yet the
prevailing sense of urgency among the
demonstration organizers is due largely to a
history of non-cooperation and disregard by
administrators for the reservations of
countless students who fear the dangers posed
by current growth plans. The Council has
been ignored, avoided or rejected in its efforts
to create a forum for faculty, administration
and student criticism of the expansion
projections of Mr. Shannon.

Student Council President Tom Collier
yesterday captured that sense of urgency.
"People have got to realize," he said, "that
this may be our last chance to make the
administration take us seriously." Mr. Collier
stressed the importance of a big turn-out both
Monday night and during the activities
planned for Tuesday, when students will
study-in, eat-in and play-in at several already
overcrowded facilities.

Should the actions proceed successfully,
the effect will be dramatic, the implication
clear: unbridled, poorly planned growth is an
imminent threat to the quality of life at the
University. It remains for Mr. Shannon to
show us he has dealt openly and
conscientiously with that threat.