University of Virginia Library

English's Example

Several factors apparently went into the
English Department's decision of last week to
make comprehensive examinations optional.
One of the most easily overlooked was the
fact that a key member of the department
who had supported comps is away from the
University this spring. Another key to
English's decision was the increased dialogue
between students and faculty for the past
several months. And finally, the English
faculty realized that, whatever their theoretical
justification, comprehensive exams were
no longer educationally viable in practice.

The personal factor is especially significant
in light of charges that other departments are
being run by small groups of influential and
tenured personnel who have what amounts to
veto power over any academic innovation the
department wishes to introduce. While the
undergraduate chairman of the English Department
was here and in favor of retaining
comps, there was never even a majority vote
in favor of doing away with them. He left, and
the department voted unanimously for abolition.

The second and third factors are intertwined.
When the English Department began
to seriously consider the opinions of its
students, it found that sentiment against
comprehensives was vehement and widespread.
Sensibly enough, the English Department
realized that to force its students to take
comprehensives under such conditions would
be fruitless.

In theory, the comprehensive examination
is the culmination of a student's undergraduate
career, an exercise in which he
demonstrates that he has acquired a degree of
expertise in his major field and that his
education is sufficient to allow him to
integrate that knowledge into a functioning
ability to work with the questions that face
his particular discipline.

There are two things wrong with this
theory. The first is that the body of
knowledge in almost every field has expanded
to the point where it is unreasonable to
expect that a candidate for a B.A. be familiar
with all of the various sub-fields in his
discipline. And even if this were not the case,
the typical comprehensive exam is not, and
perhaps cannot be, constructed to fulfill its
half of the theoretical bargain.

Students, realizing this, have refused to
approach the exams in the manner in which
they were intended to do so. They are looked
upon as anachronistic hurdles to be surmounted
with the least possible work and
with no regard whatever for the supposed
purpose of the exercise. This student attitude,
coupled with the aforementioned difficulties
with the theory of a comprehensive test has
destroyed the ability of the exam to act as a
useful educational tool. The English Department
recognized this, and the College's other
departments might do well to follow its
example.