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

DATE: FRIDAY, March 8, 1991                   TAG: 9103080525
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STATE COUNCIL REVIEWING NEW COLLEGE PROGRAMS

The State Council of Higher Education was urged this week to approve two new programs at Virginia Tech for 1992 and one new program at Radford University.

The council's staff also recommended that the start-up of two new programs at Tech - a doctoral program in hotel restaurant and institution management and a doctoral program in exercise physiology - be denied for next year.

But it will be April before the council decides for sure what programs will be denied, said Margaret Miller, associate director for academic affairs.

"What we've got here are some tough decisions," she said Thursday. "We've just identified the programs in trouble. This is the beginning of our process."

Miller said she hopes the universities will help decide what programs are denied or deferred.

"We've identified some of these programs as having a low number of interested students," she said. "What happens now will depend on what the council decides and what the institutions decide."

The programs approved for the universities include a bachelor's degree in human development at Radford and a master's in hotel restaurant and institution management and a bachelor's in environmental science at Tech.

"The programs we approved basically come with little or no costs to start up," said Ann-Marie McCartam, academic programs coordinator for the council.

The staff recommended in some cases that approval be delayed because they cost "new money."

"It's still positive and we like the programs," Miller said. "It's just unclear where the money will come from." Programs in this category include master's degrees in international economics and in computational sciences at Radford, and a bachelor's degree in industrial design, and master's degree in Spanish studies, in philosophy and in music performance at Tech.

"The council has been vigorous in cutting programs in the last few years," Miller said. "We're quite baffled about what to do. We don't want to deny students these opportunities."

by CNB