Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 13, 1993 TAG: 9301130106
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
PANEL OKS DISPUTED COLLEGES-REFORM REPORT
The State Council of Higher Education voted Tuesday to pass a controversial report on to the General Assembly, but made sure to add that the report was only preliminary.The report recommends an end to remedial classes at the state's four-year colleges, higher admissions standards, more time spent teaching, and an understanding that there will be little funding available to accommodate an influx of students in the colleges over the next decade.
The move was the latest in what some have referred to as a battle over the vision for higher education.
On one side, there is the council - a state agency that is both coordinator for and advocate of higher education in Virginia. Its staff wrote the report. On the other side sit college presidents, faculty and board members, who fear they are being asked to take on too much, too soon.
Both sides, however, are calling it not a battle but a conversation, and Gordon Davies, director of the council, said Tuesday that the conversation will continue through the legislative session.
"We're still open for discussion," Davies said Tuesday after the board's regular meeting. "We're doing what the General Assembly has asked us to do."
The report looks at ways to restructure higher education, and the colleges admit there needs to be some degree of restructuring.
But some professors fear legislators and the public lack an understanding of what professors do; that they are viewed as lazy and absorbed in their research instead of their students.
And they admit, a few are. But not the majority.
"We have to resolve this tension between teaching and research without throwing out the research," Virginia Tech President James McComas said this week.
University of Virginia President John Casteen has taken a lot of the heat - as head of The Council of Public College Presidents, he's the spokesman. But on Monday, it was McComas who spoke about the issue, offering quiet, methodical explanations.
Schools need to do more to educate the public on what they are doing, he said, particularly about research. "Research and development keep us competitive economically. That's what makes the country competitive - what we invent."
But McComas added that universities need to spend more time educating students, particularly the undergraduates, about the state-of-the-art research taking place so they can reap some of the benefits.
He also said that universities have to concentrate on reducing class sizes to give more individual attention to students - a hard task considering that schools can expect enrollment to increase by 65,000 over the next decade.
Davies pointed out, though, that the students will come gradually and be spread out among the state's 39 institutions.
Moving remedial classes from four-year schools to community colleges is more a worry for the urban colleges like Norfolk State and Virginia State than for the doctoral institutions like Tech and UVa. But on this report, the colleges are sticking together.
McComas said those urban schools serve older students, who may need brushing up on English and math. And they may find the two-step process of starting at a community college discouraging.
"Virginia is already probably among the most selective [college] admissions systems in the United States," McComas said, adding that Tech and UVa already have high standards.
The council can make suggestions, but does not have the authority to set admissions standards for the schools, Davies said.
The report has gone through several revisions since it was released in early December.
"I hope we don't back off from the basic tenets of what this report says," council member Charles Lacy said during Tuesday's meeting. "I think it's reality."
Meanwhile, educators - while they have a goal to bring the public and the General Assembly into a dialogue about education - are trying to keep negotiations about the report more private.
"We don't want to escalate the argument or make it any more public than it already is," McComas said. `It would only make an agreement more difficult to reach."
But he believes agreement will come in time. "I don't believe Dr. Davies has closed any doors."
In other business, the board the asked the staff to continue looking at the possibility of a prepayment program. The General Assembly had asked last year that the council explore ways that parents and students, in a world of tuition increases, could save money.
The findings will be presented sometime during the 1993 session.