University of Virginia Library

The Writer Loses His Cool
Temporarily

(6) That is, if students at Birdwood need Alderman that
often; if they need those labs three or four times a week; if
their newly-built surroundings are that drab and uncongenial;
if their fellow suffering classmates are that dull, shallow, and

uncommunicative, then something is grievously wrong with
the architecture, the curriculum, and the selection process. If
we cannot plan ahead to avoid some of these stunning
grievances, then we may as well build high-rise dormitory
boxes at random spots on the present Grounds and forget
about housing students at Birdwood at all. Why put them
there in the first place, if their immediate need is to get back
here, in such numbers that a bee-line bridge and road is the
only solution? Use the air over University Hall parking areas
and put dorms, classrooms, and snack bars there. Run a bridge
over US 29 to similar facilities in Lambeth Field. And leave
Birdwood for the geese and golfers and ecology freaks—making
sure to lease the highway frontage to Shell, Sunoco, BP, Dairy
Queen, and Stuckey's.

(7) Sarcasm aside, the assumed need for this bridge might
just possibly be a symbol of the kind of thinking I hope we can
avoid from the beginning as we start visualizing an academic
experience at Birdwood in organic relation to its setting. It
seems to me the kind of unexamined assumption that tends
to get made, and once made, is not hauled out for scrutiny
until it's too late. No more than any one else do I want to
spend years of unproductive hassling over this and that detail
of Birdwood. None of us, after all, is going to be entirely
pleased with what we finally propose for Birdwood. Some of
us have irreconcilable differences in esthetic tastes and in
academic philosophy, though I suspect we will discover a great
deal of agreement on the latter as we sit down and exchange
our premises, goals, and ideals.