THE UNIVERSITY has a kindergarten teacher masquerading as a Dean of Students. Listening to Dean Penny Rue's speech to the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society last week, it was apparent that she views student self-governance as something to be relegated to unimportant issues. She and the other adults will handle the big stuff.
A Duke graduate, which says all you need to know, Rue has come to us from Georgetown, a school with absolutely nothing in common with the University. After almost a year on the job, Rue has yet to embrace the traditional view of student self-governance: that it actually stands for something real.
The Dean's speech last Friday started out alright, spouting off the usual platitudes about self-governance. "The University is a leadership laboratory on a grand scale," she said. "The principle of student self-governance is about learning through experience." Rue then assured the crowd that, "Dean of Students has many roles, but none is more precious to me than lending an ear to you."
Sounds great until you realize that Rue has no intention of doing anything but listening. It quickly became clear that she views self-governance as a learning experience -- a way of teaching young people about the values of leadership. A big laboratory where the results can be scrapped if the scientists don't like them. But that is as far as it goes with her. It is all just a psychology lesson out of her Teaching Leadership 101 textbook.
Rue regards student self-governance from a relativist perspective. "The legitimacy of student self-governance depends on the issue," she explained. It seems that students can be trusted with piddly issues like dances and charity events, but the adults will step in when the question actually affects students' lives. Rue said, "I see myself as a risk manager." Apparently some things are just too risky to leave to a student to handle.
Though Rue was mostly smiles and psychobabble, we got a glimpse of how she really feels about student self-governance when she was questioned about fraternity rush. Moving rush was one of the handful of times in the last decade when the administration totally disregarded student leaders and opinion. What was Rue's defense of this act? "The administration had the power to do what they did." In the Dean's world, much like kindergarten, school is not a democracy.
Rue would not even concede that freedom of association is the bedrock of self-governance, and everything else we do at the University. When asked whether student self-governance depended upon student organizations having the right to organize themselves, she responded tellingly, "I am sure you feel that way," and moved on with her speech. Not exactly resounding support for a laissez-faire administrative policy.
Indeed, Rue seems to draw many of her views from the elementary schoolteacher's handbook. She posed the question, "What does it mean to be a leader at a school with an honor system?" Her answer: "It means that you might not feel bad for speaking out [about someone's misconduct] or for asking questions [about their misconduct]." In other words, the point of the honor system is to quiet one's conscience about tattling. Just like the teacher in the schoolyard, Rue would rather students "tell" than handle things themselves. It is a metaphor for her philosophy. But though honor stands for many principles, snitching is not one of them. After all, Professor John Davis did not tell on his assailant. He merely said that an honorable man would come forward, and took his murderer's name to the grave.
Student self-governance is what makes the University special. It is not a game, it is shorthand for the way we live our lives and run our community. Whether it be Monroe Hill, Hereford or Rugby Road, here students govern themselves, police themselves and discipline themselves. It is not about administrators merely lending an ear to students, it is about the adults and the children actually working together to run a community. It is a delicate tradition that should not be tampered with by a kindergarten teacher posing as a dean. Rue herself put it best when she said, "I have much to learn."
(Sam Waxman's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
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