Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 9, 1992 TAG: 9203090168
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
No matter what building it was in, Squires Center or Cassell Coliseum, The Big Table was where members of Tech's Board of Visitors gathered to make decisions about the future of the university.
It was like Thanksgiving, Hillison used to joke: The adults crowded around the main table that held the turkey; the kids sat at a bridge table.
And for years, members of the Faculty Senate sat with the kids.
But last year, Lud Eng, also a past president of the senate, was invited to sit at the big table. And Hillison, when he became president, got to sit there, too.
It was the first step.
Eventually, the faculty would want more, Hillison said from time to time. "But let's get them used to seeing us at The Big Table first."
By January, the senate thought the board members were used to it. The faculty unanimously endorsed a motion calling for formal representation on the Board of Visitors.
"This administration has been extremely open to faculty and student input," said Leon Geyer, now president of the senate.
The Board of Visitors has the authority to give the faculty a formal seat on the board. It elected to give the students such a seat four or five years ago.
But to give the faculty voting privileges would require an act of the legislature.
Secretary of Education James Dyke has said he would support such an act.
Del. Joan Munford has said she, too, would support legislation if it were supported by the university's administration.
For now, things appear to be on hold.
But in the future, the senators may have a seat reserved at The Big Table for good.
Virginia Tech reported a record number of applications this year, despite a reduced pool of high school graduates and an economy that has many families saving their pennies.
The reason could be that many Virginia families want their sons and daughters to stay in the state, where costs are lower at public colleges and universities.
But some state schools are reporting a drop in applications, including the University of Virginia, which received 2,000 fewer applications than last year.
So it could be, too, that Tech's name recognition and prestige are growing in Virginia.
UVa blamed its decrease on the shrinking pool of graduates and on the negative publicity that came from a drug raid there last March.
At Virginia Military Institute, applications were up 14 percent.
That school also has been receiving attention because of a federal trial over whether it could remain all-male.
But, said Tom Joynes, a VMI spokesman, the national publicity could have had the opposite effect.
"Maybe it helped," he said.
The state legislature passed a bill at this past session allowing Christopher Newport College in Newport News to change its name to Christopher Newport University. This can lead to only one thing: T-shirt sales.
The bookstore confirmed this week that it's offering its current stock of "college" items for 20 percent off.
It's going to have to do better than that if it wants to get rid of hundreds of clothing items by the time the new "university" products arrive this spring.
Madelyn Rosenberg covers higher education from the Roanoke Times and World-News' New River Valley Bureau.
by CNB