
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 21, 1994                   TAG: 9412210098
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RADFORD STILL HOPES NEW COLLEGE CAN LIVE

On a rainy summer day, Robert Skunda, Virginia's Commerce and Trade secretary, strode to a platform on a Radford street corner and spoke enthusiastically about the building that was to be constructed there.

Here would grow the New College of Global Studies, an economic development tool that would teach its graduates technological communication and how to move among different cultures in our global economy.

But that was then, Skunda said Tuesday, one day after Gov. George Allen proposed erasing the global college from the state's educational landscape.

"I think [the speech] still stands in terms of feeling about program. But when hard budget choices have to be made, we're back to the principal initiative the governor has advanced, which is tax cuts."

Allen would slash $400 million from next year's budget to pay for his $2 billion tax cut and prison-building plans. Radford University administrators Tuesday began mapping strategy to win the money back during the legislative session.

The state already has made a big investment in the New College of Global Studies. Since 1989, Radford has spent $2.2 million launching it. The college is slated to open to a pilot class of 50 students next fall.

Allen did not touch the $5 million building about which Skunda spoke, although a construction delay means the project won't be put back out to bid until February. administrators said. Secretary of Education Beverly Sgro suggested the building could be a dorm. Allen also left $700,000 in the budget to plan the college's second building.

But his $2 million cut would end 28 jobs, about 14 of them slated to start next year. Six faculty members signed one-year, non-tenured contracts this summer and are spending this year building a curriculum.

But Sgro views the program as undefined, and, for that matter, not in demand by students or business. Besides, it has no students yet, which made it easier to end.

College Provost Meredith Strohm said she hoped to have a "fuller conversation" with the Allen administration about the benefits of the college, widely expected to produce an economic connection between Southwest Virginia and a range of international companies - 300 of which do business here.

Strohm, an aide to former Democratic Gov. Gerald Baliles, and global college spokeswoman Charlotte Hawes, daughter of Democratic Sen. Madison Marye of Shawsville, both said they did not think their political ties had anything to do with the Republican governor's action.

"We've had such strong, bipartisan support" from legislators, Strohm said. "I have no indication this is a [part of a] political or personal agenda."

by CNB