University of Virginia Library

The UP's Progress

Last week the University Party began circulating
a sheet entitled "Up Progress Report,"
which is designed to show what
advances have been made that the UP
advocated last year. The report, written by
present Student Council members Gordon
Calvert, Jacques Jones, and Pieter Schenkkan,
is very relevant in light of the upcoming
elections.

The first plank was advocacy of a "student
legislature and direct election of officers."
Here the UP has claimed almost
exclusive credit for the proposed constitution
now before the Council which contains these
points (although a student legislature has
been in effect with the Council for quite
a few years).

The second plank was a study of the
dormitory counselling program, a study
that is supposedly underway under Mr.
Jones. What the report fails to admit, however,
is, according to one counselor involved,
that the investigation has not even
begun, although the incidents which provoked
it occurred weeks ago.

Such is the case with many of the other
planks as well. The party came out strongly
last semester in favor of a pass-fail option,
a broader course range with fewer first-year
requirements, and more leniency on
pre-vacation cut penalties. We feel no need
to remind anyone that these are administrative
and faculty restrictions, and that the
students, regrettably, have little say about
them. The best summary here was written
by the authors of the progress report themselves,
when they said of abolishing Saturday
classes: "In effect for next year, but
we cannot take credit for it."

Further platform planks reach even more
into areas where the UP has no authority:
studying residential college facilities (now
being done by the Council for eventual recommendation
to the administration); coeducation,
where a faculty committee is
doing the work; and more representative
PK-German dance societies, where the
societies themselves have already taken the
lead in opening up their membership. It
again appears that the UP has attempted
to extend itself into or take credit in areas
in which it has no power to accomplish
anything.

Still other planks on the progress report
are included as if to imply the UP's accomplishments
in these areas. The first is
the proposed busing system, for which
former Council member Chip Lacy (not a
member of the UP) has been working
virtually by himself on a projected system
for a year; second is a two-sticker car system,
which Jim Brashares (not a member
of the UP) has been working to set up
since early fall, again with almost no help;
third is to have student consultation on
University and city master plans. We doubt
if the University, much less the city of
Charlottesville, will ever grant this privilege
to the students; in any case, there has been
absolutely no progress here by any student
organization.

Three planks have, however, seen some
action in the past year: Student Council
recognition of student religious groups,
a book co-op, and a centralized lost and
found. The first is, as in most cases, still
only being investigated; the second is, as in
the four previous attempts, having its attempts
at investigation blocked by local and
administrative sources; and the third, which
was approved by the Council, has not yet
been implemented.

Scanning the progress sheet, we find that,
of sixteen planks on the platform, nine
are still under investigation, four are outside
the Council's jurisdiction (in addition to
those being studied that can only be recommended
to the administration) or are
being implemented by others than UP members,
and two others are presumably in
the process of being carried out—the proposed
constitution and the lost and found.

With the Student Council and Judiciary
elections next week, it appears that the progress
report was produced at a time when it
could shed much light on the accomplishments
of the University Party's platform
advances. Yet in most instances the platform
was a collection of ideas that were
far beyond its realm or either were already
in the process of study by another
source.

It appears in the report as if all the
action taken by Council in the past two
semesters were results of the UP's efforts,
whereas in many cases the makers of the
platform merely jumped onto an issue already
introduced by other members of Council.
It also appears that the authors intended
to have the report show the progress made
in many areas that in fact have long been
outside the Council's jurisdiction.

It is a well-known fact that the University
Party has done a great deal in the past
year towards strengthening the Council. In
this area, however, it has not been alone,
and it is regrettable that the progress report
seemingly claims credit where little has,
in reality, been done.

R. O. M.