University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

Page 17 text:

l l lill'i.. ' The mode of dress quickly strikes the visitor who may have known the University in more for- mal days. To the delight of parents, alumni, the Corner tailors, and the little old ladies who visit during Garden Week, the majority of students adhere to the coat and tie tradition. There have always been those self-styled rebels who have deliberately flouted tradition with their army fa- tigues and dirty jeansg we should worry, in fact, if there were not such characters, for what a dull place this would be if we were all cut, as it were, from the same bolt of tweed. What is a more re- cent-and a more disturbing-development is the number of students who ostensibly have no quarrel with convention but who adopt the most informal of attire, for reasons of apathy, indo- lence or who knows what.-The fact that J. Press cut Charlottesville from its itinerary this year may be a more significant comment than it might appear. The coat and tie tradition is being undermined from within. Making a value judg- ment about the passing of such a tradition is difficult. Do clothes make the man-or at least reflect something about him-to a greater extent than some might think? Or will a student now be judged by his other merits, not by the cut of his clothes?

Page 16 text:

Student politics, once the preserve of the few and noted for its dullness, is becoming more open and more issue-oriented, as the University Party's recent successes show. The Cavalier Dai- ly is showing signs of life, whether writing about marijuana or lVlcNamara, and new publications like Rapier are jabbing satirically at all our foibles. For a long time somewhat isolated in a world of his own, the University student is extending his horizons beyond Charlottesville. More and more students are becoming involved in tackling the problems of an urban society or in joining the Peace Corps, and such foreign phenome- na as protesting the war in Vietnam and smok- ing marijuana are appearing on the Grounds. Let us look more closely at two institutions of the old University-one superficial, the other much more important-that are being challenged.

Page 18 text:

The Honor System is a more important mat- ter. Although some of its admirers insist that the system is as strong and viable as ever, such un- fortunately is not the case. A major challenge to the system has come from the increasing num- ber of persons exposed to a different academic environment who come to Charlottesville. The University tries to assimilate them into its own unique ethos. For every graduate or transfer stu- dent for whom this assimilation is a success, there is another who rejects the University's way of doing things or regards it with a condescend- ing air. This rejection can be seen readily in the hostility a number of graduate students have shown toward attempts to orient them to the Honor System. That adjustments will have to be made in the way the System is presented and administered is clear. Already, the Honor Committee has sought to make its procedures conform with legal stan- dards of due process, and increasingly defen- ders of the System are realizing that the concept of honor must be presented in intellectual rather than emotional terms. The Honor System, we have discovered, must be presented in an atmo- sphere of open discussion rather than in terms of it has been our oldest and most cherished tradition. Whatever the changing ways, this is an ex- citing time to be at the University. There are those pessimists, of course, who see the old University giving way to the new in terms of a well-born but impoverished spinster forced to sell the family estate to greedy and un- scrupulous speculators who will trample on tra- dition as casually as they trample on the lady's nasturtiums. To such persons, any .innovation becomes suspect, any decent burial of an anti- quated tradition, impossibly radical. Such dark predictions are as short-sighted as those of the cultural anarchists who wish the University to ignore its heritage. Given as re- markable a legacy as the University enjoys, our task in the years immediately ahead is to deter- mine which of our traditions are merely quaint and which have something to offer, to enhance, to stimulate the progress of the University. We must search for our usable past.