At the risk of further boring the
university community with the
Government and Foreign Affairs
department's dirty linen, I would
like to comment on the recent
exchange of letters in this section
of The Cavalier Daily. Whatever
position one takes it should be clear
to all and sundry by now that there
are serious and real difficulties in
our department. I can understand
that Mr. Williams and his first year
colleagues would resent being considered
evidence of a decline in the
quality of incoming graduates in
the department. In his place I
would resent it and on this question
he perhaps knows more than some
of us who have been here three or
four years. But he errs seriously in
further supposing that all is rosy on
the second floor of Cabell Hall.
In this regard Mr. Hutchinson's
reply is rightly indignant. Should
anyone suppose that the views Mr.
Hutchinson expresses in his letter
are his personal aberration or are
excessively violent they would be
mistaken because they are neither
his alone nor are they excessive in
my view. He only expresses what all
third and fourth year graduate
students of my acquaintance have
been privately saying for some
time. We did not arrive at the
University with these alienated
opinions - they grew slowly as the
causes of these problems remained
unchanged and unchangeable year
after year. We simply feel that this
department is ours too, or should
be. We only wish to be a participating
part of the department, not
merely onlookers. We do not seek
to run the department, to establish
curriculum, or to hire and fire
faculty, and if this is the image that
some have of the aims of the recent
protest in the department then it
only shows the credible breakdown
of communication and the resulting
misconceptions we are faced with.
Dissatisfaction would vanish overnight,
indeed it would never have
arisen in the first place, if only we
felt the faculty had enough regard
and concern for us to converse with
us in a more meaningful way than
to occasionally post a decree on the
bulletin board.
There is no purpose in re-rehashing
specific grievances. Perhaps
some of these grievances are those
difficulties that all graduate
students are heir to and will be
always with us. Perhaps even some
of these grievances are petty. Or
maybe the Government and
Foreign Affairs department desperately
needs reformation if it is
not to face a long slide downhill to
the destruction of a once promising
graduate program. So Mr.
Hutchinson is violent in his concern
- things always look more violent
in print than they do over a table in
the grill - but I for one applaud his
bringing these problems forcefully
to the attention of all. I have no
magic remedy but to hope that if
only some goodwill still exists on
both sides and a discussion begins
now we can heal our wounds rather
than continuing to saber each other
in public.
Steven L. Blake
Grad A&S 4
