IT'S EASY to think of this as one of the more depressing times of the year -- a time when days get colder, nights get longer and desperate fourth years discover that the popular classes they always wanted to take have once again been snatched up by the supposed intellectual übermenschen of Maupin and Webb: the Echols scholars, who are given registration priority and are exempted from area requirements.
Most arguments for the Echols program go like this: Echols scholars are better students than you, without the Echols program better students wouldn't come here and then the University would have a worse reputation. Don't complain, they're doing us a favor.
A 2004 study reveals that 40 percent of Echols Scholars wouldn't have come here had they not been offered the Echols perks. But if someone would only want to enroll at the University after being offered Echols, the University could probably do just as well to offer that spot to a student who already appreciates the University for what it is.
Many supporters of the Echols program try to bolster their case with the words of Thomas Jefferson, because at the University, every shoddy policy decision can be handily justified by repeating something Jefferson said out of context. As Echols supporters argue, Jefferson said, "There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents." This justification of the Echols scholar program breaks down on two levels. First, it assumes that a person's high school transcript is a fair measure of his or her "virtue and talents," which it is not. Most critically, it assumes that the two-tiered system engineered by the Echols scholar program reflects some sort of "natural" development. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what Jefferson was talking about.
Jefferson was referring to the fact that, given a level playing field, some people will end up more successful than others. But the Echols program institutionalizes a lopsided playing field, creating inherent advantages and disadvantages for students on either side of the arbitrary standard, and preventing a true natural aristocracy from developing. It's easy to tell that the Echols program doesn't reflect an organic intellectual aristocracy, because human beings don't come in only two different types.
It's easy to think that critics of Echols are simply sour over being kicked back in the registration pool. But this is just one problem; a possibly greater problem is the exemption of Echols scholars from area requirements.
It doesn't make sense that Echols scholars should be exempted from area requirements while the rest of us are forced to get an education. Each of the area requirements forms an integral pillar of liberal education, which should produce well-rounded students capable of solving problems from many different angles, not just angles students happen to find fun or interesting. Such exemptions are a surrender to the consumer mentality that students who are more in demand have a right to set the terms of their education, rather than that being set by deference to the established tradition of what makes a well-rounded student. However, Echols scholars did not earn lower standards simply by doing a bit better in high school.
This is not to say that all Echols scholars enjoy the program only for its registration priority and lower standards. Echols Dean Richard Handler did not respond to repeated requests for comment by press time, but former Echols Dean James Sofka told A&S Magazine in January, "the Echols Scholars Program provides the intimacy of a small liberal arts college with the punch of a major research university."
In reality, though, the Echols program isn't really an attempt to create a close knit academical village as Sofka said, but is merely a rough effort to attract top students by selling out academic standards and fairness instead of offering merit-based cash the way most private universities do. The truth is that the University can attract top students without offering either. Highlighting the merits of a University education can carry this school much further than tossing out superficial bait like Echols, and all without compromising the fairness and rigorous standards of which Thomas Jefferson would be so proud.
Herb Ladley is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at hladley@cavalierdaily.com.
Read More
UPADHYAYA: The Great and not-so-Good sides of U.Va.’s 2030 housing plan
By Apal Upadhyaya | 2 days agoInstead of improving the dire state of existing infrastructure, however, the University has shifted attention away from it and chosen to expand.
EDITORIAL: Support low-barrier shelters in Charlottesville
By Editorial Board | 3 days agoInvesting in low-barrier shelters now will pay off in increased stability for the homeless, which will undoubtedly improve the safety of shelters and the community writ large.
SHRAUGER: McIntire’s three-year model limits opportunities for first-year students
By Alex Shrauger | 5 days agoBy pigeonholing students into commerce so early, the University violates its own mission of providing a holistic education that produces students capable of succeeding in a variety of fields.
