University of Virginia Library

Monkey Business

When I read that the English
department had abolished comps, I
was not particularly surprised. Such
a move has obviously been coming
for a long time now. I was curious,
though, about how the department
would work in the old rhetoric
about "breadth of knowledge," and
I now see that they did a good job
of negating the effects that the
abolition of comps might have had
on students' freedom of study.

What is academic freedom?
Traditionally this term has been
connected with the sanctity of the
pursuit of knowledge and the
ivory-tower intellectualism on
which "our" English department is
built. These ideals are nice, I guess,
but what about the academic freedom
of the individual student? In
an institution such as this, one must
fragment his interests, and disperse
them over the "breadth" of the
knowledge it is intended he learn. If
the frustration of his courses' irrelevancy
to his needs causes him to
slight them, they strike back in
indignation and brand him with a
"Gentleman's D." To quote Chuck
Berry's analysis of the situation,
there's "Too much monkey business/for
me to be involved in."