How Much Power?

U.S. campuses these days resound to a chorus of cries for student power. But what role do the students want to play in influencing university affairs? Some youthful revolutionaries, of course, are simply using the university as a platform to assault U.S. society as a whole, and even the most outspoken advocates of student power stop short of wanting to govern a university. Basically, today's undergraduate rebels hope to be taken seriously as a responsible voice in shaping their university—which means influencing basic policy decisions, securing better teachers, helping create a more meaningful curriculum, and insisting on autonomy in their personal lives. None of these requests are at all absurd.

Most enlightened university officials would like to grant students almost total power in making rules about housing and social activities. Students justifiably argue that they should not have to live under more restrictive conditions than their noncollege peers who have jobs. Yet countless wrangles over dormitory visitation rights and check-in hours persist because universities fear that parents want their offspring sheltered—a practical impossibility. Actually, many campuses that have let students create such rules have found them almost as stern about conduct as those imposed by the administration.

Right to Be Heard. Students have also proved highly effective in enforcing campus rules through their own court systems at campuses such as the University of Pennsylvania. Committees at both Wisconsin and Berkeley have even urged that administrators stay out of the disciplinary process on the theory that this sets administrators against students, cripples their leadership and guidance capabilities.

On academic matters, student critiques of their professors are becoming commonplace. Since most professors cling to the shibboleth that letting a colleague observe their teaching would be an invasion of "academic freedom," student opinions ought to be incorporated into promotion procedures if good teaching is ever to get its just rewards. As it is now, teaching is judged mainly by grapevine gossip. "I have no idea how well my associates teach—I've never seen them," concedes Chicago Humanities Professor Herman Sinaiko. A large university simply could not function, however, if professors were subject to the total—and predictably whimsical—power of students to hire and fire them.

Students are demanding the right to be heard on committees that change curriculums, shift degree requirements and grading practices. There is little doubt that they can make an immense contribution to such planning—and there is no question about the justice of their claim that many courses are, indeed, irrelevant. Harvard's law faculty is pleased with a student-initiated drive that liberalized its once-rigid curriculum, added numerous elective courses.

Imaginative courses from student-run free universities are being added to some curriculums. But, again, students do not have the experience to dominate all course decisions. Few educators would accept Kansas Graduate Student Hamilton Salsich's argument that "Shakespeare is not immediately relevant to student lives."