SO THEY put up a big white tent, but tables and shade do not an intellectual community make. And they moved fall rush, blaming kegs and frat boys for the erosion of the academical village. But the blame doesn't lie with students. It takes two to tango, and at the University, the faculty rarely shows up to dance.
An intellectual community is fostered by the exchange of ideas. Opinions are questioned, philosophies are developed, and minds are expanded. Some of this development takes place in the classroom, but much of it also should take place in dorms and dining halls. Admittedly, the University often lacks such discussion and development. The question of whether the University's current social structure and ethos is conducive to such an environment is legitimate, but best left for another day. Instead, what must be questioned is the faculty's commitment to their students' intellectual development.
To be sure, some faculty members are interested in participating in their students' lives. Men's basketball Coach Pete Gillen came to the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society meeting last Friday night, bringing his son and one of his players. Larry J. Sabato, government and foreign affairs professor, has been known to return students' phone calls from halfway around the world. Law Professor Robert M. O'Neil has his students over for dinner every semester.
Yet these examples are few and far between. Instead, when students congregate sans keg, professors are rarely to be found. At the Law School, the dean sponsored a bagel breakfast to promote student-faculty interaction. They canceled it this fall because they couldn't get faculty to come. Every spring the Jefferson Society holds a faculty cocktail party, but this is something of a misnomer, because if a dozen professors turn out it is a great showing.
The faculty needs an attitude change. Professors must be dedicated to the intellectual development of their undergraduate students. Teaching is not an attendant evil of research. And teaching is more than lecturing. Discussion sections, where the ideas and issues of a class are debated, usually are left to teaching assistants. If faculty members truly are interested in fostering intellectual dialogue, then discussion sections should be the moments they cherish most. But for the most part, professors aren't there to enjoy it.
Talking to professors is a powerful learning tool not enough students use. But in order to encourage participation, faculty members must make themselves more accessible to students. Holding office hours for two or three hours a week is not enough. This is especially true when professors schedule their hours at times when most students are in class or eating lunch. And far too often, professors just don't show up to their posted time.
Much ink has been spent blaming fall rush, fraternities and binge drinking for the lack of intellectualism at the University. But what are the alternatives. The big white tent? Get real. If attendance at the Jefferson Society's speaker series is any indication, students are hungry for an alternative to the Biltmore and keg stands. But someone has to give it to them. A professor's responsibilities to the community do not end when the 50 minutes of lecture time are up. Their interests and connections in the larger academic community must be shared with their students. The Faculty Senate should spend less time griping about state funding and more time planning debates and inviting speakers.
To date, the development of an intellectual community at the University has stressed the "intellectual" and not the "community." No doubt the drinking culture of Rugby Road is destructive, but it is not enough for the faculty to sit back and point out that University students often act like drunken pagans. Nor is it acceptable for the faculty to hide behind student self-governance and wait for students to change things all by their lonesome. The truth is, students like drinking and carousing, and even if they didn't, students couldn't change things on their own. The community we tout includes more than just students. It includes faculty, administrators and staff. If the "adults" around us want to see more intellectual pursuits, then they must roll up their sleeves and get involved. Monday morning quarterbacking won't get the job done.
Faculty disengagement has a long history at Mr. Jefferson's University. In the 1930s, Gov. Harry F. Byrd commissioned a study of university faculty all around the South. The study found that University professors taught the least classes of all the schools. This is one University tradition that should end.
(Sam Waxman's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He is a former president of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society.)
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