Why so quiet ?
Sir: Mr Mark Killingsworth's admission (29 March) that few students seek much voice in university financial operations • leads one to wonder how realistic the arguments for student participation are. For even if students justify their reluctance to delve into the book-keeping on grounds of incompetence, how responsible can any group be when it may appropriate on whim but never fret about revenue?
A large number of the better students I have known over the last several years are sufficiently attracted by their chosen fields of study to devote most of their contemplation to those areas. Whatever surplus time for thought they retain is usually allocated to the more pressing problems of world and nation, life and the future; next to these, campus questions seem short-lived and even trivial. And if it is conceded that students know a great deal about what is good both for them- selves and for education in general, there still remains the fact that while students depart in four years, the university has to live with whatever decisions are made or buildings built. Having been a college managing editor myself at Cornell last year, I've seen too much 'social sophistication and savoir-faire' among those students who become closely involved in uni- versity decision making. A 'little administrator' type of student develops, with a remarkable capacity for saying yes to the deans as he quaffs scotch or bourbon.
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