University of Virginia Library

Faculty Counselors
Have Open Doors

By Curtis Wagner

Walking down the halls where
the faculty offices are located, one
might happen to notice that on
some of the doors there are little
blue markers with a piece of wheat
attached to each one. Along with
each marker is the phone number
and address of the faculty member.
This signifies that this faculty
member is part of a new counseling
service.

Last year during the strike, the
churches around the University
were criticised for having spent too
much time with "radical" students
while neglecting the majority of
"moderate." students who also have
problems.

In order to remedy this, Howard
Gordon of the Westminster
Presbyterian Church proposed to a
group of Christian faculty members
that they form a counseling service
for students. At the moment
around 50 have offered their
services.

Any student with any kind of
problem can get in touch with one
of these faculty members at any
time to discuss it with him. Every
two months the counselors will
meet and discuss collectively the
problems of the students.

The object of the service, to use
a phrase of Mr. Gordon's, is to
create a "communication
network." Whether it does or not,
it is obvious that something is
needed to bring the university
together.

Certain politicians, especially
those on the right, have been trying
to turn the public against higher
education to suit their own
advantages. This must not be
allowed to happen, because higher
education is needed in order to
further the idea that there are other
values beside the materialistic ones,
which have been pushed by Western
civilization to almost pathological
extremes. In short, higher
education must unite into a
common front in order to spread
the premise that there must be a
balance between the quantity of
goods and the quality of life.