University of Virginia Library

Elaborate Self-Selection Process

(28) During fall of 1972 begin to accept applications from
students for the next academic year in residence at Birdwood,
the process being largely one of automatic self-selection
entered in by students who wish to take the courses offered
there, who have a particular attachment to certain of the
professors to be in residence, who have a wish to escape the
relative impersonality of the Grounds and wish to enter into a
genuine "community of learning." If enrollments appear to be
over-large, pare down by including those students whose
primary motivation is desire for the community experience,
since the student whose only desire is a particular course can
live in town and find his way out to Birdwood twice a week
easily enough. If enrollment turns out to be small, do a bit
more overt recruiting.

(29) Now obviously we are creating a certain kind of
community by following the preceding guidelines. We will be
short on scientists and science majors, because they do need
those labs (though I suspect ways can be devised whereby a
science major can arrange to complete his major during his
second and third years, leaving his fourth year to be spent on
mostly non-laboratory courses at Birdwood). We may be heavy
on students merely seeking a new experience or a father-figure,
who have nothing solid and substantial underlying a quest
after novelty for its own sake (which is not inherently evil,
despite received opinion to the contrary). But it seems to me
we will also be short on students who drift apathetically and
long on students who really want to give their minds a
workout and who by the act of choosing Birdwood have given
a commitment to the unusual exertion required if a true
"learning community" is to be a success. We would demand
extra exertion and hope that as a consequence each student at
times during the year reaches a state almost of intellectual
incandescence owing to the kind of activity taking place and
the surroundings in which it takes place. A "natural high," if
you will.