Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 24, 1991 TAG: 9102240073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG/ HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
And into the state Capitol.
The committee members, representing industries ranging from Westvaco to Chesapeake Corp. and interests from forestry to fisheries, presented their case to a group of heavy-hitting legislators early this session.
It was a case they'd had time to work on: Some of them had been pushing for a separate college for more than 10 years.
"I don't think there's any choice," said Ed Matics, a committee member and wood department manager for Westvaco's bleached board division. "They ought to make it a college now."
Industry supporters of Tech's School of Forestry and Wildlife Resources say the change would give the school and its graduates greater prestige.
Supporters in the General Assembly sponsored a resolution this year to study whether the school would be better off outside the umbrella of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Forestry, wildlife and fisheries alumni represent constituencies separate from those of traditional agriculture, they say.
Sponsors for the resolution, passed by the full assembly Friday afternoon, included powerful legislators such as House Speaker A.L. Philpott, D-Bassett; Del. George Grayson, D-Williamsburg, and Sen. Elmon Gray, D-Waverly.
The resolution did not have the endorsement of university officials, however.
"We've not said that we're precluding the possibility of a separate school," said University President James McComas. "The timing right now is just not good."
Provost Fred Carlisle, who reviewed the issue when he came to the university two years ago, called the timing "miserable."
"With the budget situation, we're talking about trying to keep from eliminating programs," he said. "There's no way of doing this with no additional costs. And that money is a lot when, in effect, we're cutting millions and millions of dollars from our budget."
But to members of the committee, who say an autonomous college could be set up at no extra charge - or at the most $150,000 a year - the timing for the study is crucial.
Even before John F. Hosner was fired just over a week ago, school supporters had feared they would soon lose him as the school's director because he was near retirement age, said Al Nelson, committee chairman.
James Nichols, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, had announced he would be retiring near the end of the year.
While those men were in charge, the School of Forestry had "pretty much free rein," Nelson said. But he worries that when the relationships change, the school could be headed for trouble.
"The handwriting was on the wall," he said. "There was a new president and a new provost who had not lived with this program and understood how it evolved. They saw what it was and they thought it was enough. But we in the industry thought it could go backwards."
Nichols said he understands that concern. "I worry about the future of this college as an entity and I'd hate to see it go down the tubes. But I don't intend for it to. The school and college are bigger than any one individual."
Still, the school's supporters took their cause to the General Assembly. Just as the study resolution passed the Senate Rules Committee, Hosner was fired after 30 years at the school's helm.
"I was seen as a part of the movement," Hosner said recently, as he sat behind his desk, a carved, wooden nameplate in front of him. "I was told that my thinking did not fit in with the thinking of the university. . . . I didn't bring the resolution to the legislators, but I didn't put a stop to it, either."
Nichols said Hosner's dismissal was not meant to be punitive. "There's a sense that the university administration's ideas run counter to what John Hosner thinks needs to be done . . . ."
Hosner still is a tenured professor at Tech.
"I guess I'm guilty by association," he said with a resigned smile before fielding a phone call from Del. V. Earl Dickinson, who brought the resolution to the House floor.
Dickinson, D-Mineral, like the committee members who supported the resolution, was dismayed when Hosner was fired.
"I'm just overwhelmed at such an action," he said last week on a brief break from the General Assembly session. "He was a friend of the forest industry, but John and I didn't work together. He didn't come to me with this resolution. I think this is just unheard of."
Dickinson, who is vice president of the Lumbermen's Manufacturer's Association, said he has asked the secretary of education to make some inquiries about the move.
"We were trying to do this in such a way that it would not rebound on [Hosner]," Nelson said. "But I guess it did."
Past university presidents have considered a change in the school's status.
Committee members thought they had a commitment for an independent college from former President William Lavery, said Nelson, a forestry consultant in Mechanicsville.
"We'd discussed it over many years," Lavery said. "But no decision was ever made."
A letter from Lavery to committee members indicates he believed an increase in autonomy would be necessary. It did not include a time frame.
"Even if he had made a commitment, times had changed," said McComas, who met with a group of industry people at the beginning of November. "The economy was different then. . . . Finances were different."
The number of students enrolled in the department also was different.
Over the past 15 years, enrollment in the College of Agriculture has followed a national trend and dropped dramatically - from 2,150 in the late 1970s to about 1,250.
The School of Forestry dropped from about 1,150 students in the late 1970s to 430 this year.
In recent years the numbers have started to increase again, McComas said. "I told [committee members] in our discussions that if we regained some of the enrollment, we would be in a better position to split off. If we were to do that now, we'd have two very small academic colleges."
When the issue went to the General Assembly, the university began talking to legislators.
McComas said he worried about the bias of the study, which is to be funded by private contributors.
"But the forestry representatives had made it clear," he said. "They implied that if we didn't do what they wanted, they had other ways of getting it."
Nelson said the best chance the resolution had of passing during tight budget times was to offer a privately funded study.
Regardless of where the money comes from, Andy Swiger, associate dean of the agriculture college, said "in my heart, I feel this is a university affair, not a legislative affair."
McComas agreed.
"If every college went up there to ask for their own buildings, [legislators] would call us right back and say, `OK, now what are your real priorities?' " he said.
Tech officials requested amendments to the original resolution so that now the study will take into account the effect removing the School of Forestry would have on the agriculture college, Dickinson said. They also asked that three people be added to the 12 who would serve on the governor-appointed commission.
The Forestry School, started in the 1940s, began its real growth in the 1960s when Hosner came to the university.
Industry and university officials brag about the school's successes - the departments of Fishery and Wildlife Sciences, Wood Sciences and Forestry Products and Forestry all have national recognition.
Because the school has been so successful, some officials see no reason to create a separate college right now.
But many industry officials think independence is the only way to keep growing.
"We need to take it out of that political setting where the values of the school are secondary to that of agriculture," said Charlie Blankenship, a former planner with the Jefferson National Forest.
Norfolk attorney Peter Rowe, adviser to the school's wildlife department, said university decision-makers would have an easier time finding top applicants to replace Hosner if they advertised a deanship instead of a directorship.
But McComas said it still should be easy to attract nationally known contenders for the position, which would be tied to a salary of at least $84,000 a year - the national average.
Hosner earned upwards of $99,000 a year, one of the highest salaries for forestry deans and directors in the nation, said Darrel Martin, university spokesman.
"We're very committed to make this attractive to outstanding people," McComas said.
"What attracts people to places," Nichols said, "is the quality of the program - not the title of dean or director or college or school."
Dr. Allan Hoffman, an adviser to the forestry school, said Hosner's dismissal at a time when the university needs to rely more on private funding for its projects "put us back at least three steps."
"Now we're conducting a nationwide search for a leader when we don't even have a real job description, or when we have a description that's not competitive with other nationally prominent schools," said Hoffman, a urologist from Danville. "It's hard to recruit a head if you're not an independent entity."
Industry supporters contend a degree from an independent college would be more prestigious for Tech graduates.
At that, Swiger, of the agriculture college, shook his head.
"It's the quality of the education, not the label you put on it," he said.
by CNB