BUDGET TRIMS COULD TRIM NEW VIRGINIANS

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

DATE: SUNDAY, January 31, 1993                   TAG: 9301290053
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
BUDGET TRIMS COULD TRIM NEW VIRGINIANS
In the more than 20 years that the New Virginians from Virginia Tech have operated, The Roanoke Times & World News has published several wonderful articles featuring the group and its talented members. During the last four of those 20 years, I had the privilege to be a member of the New Virginians Showband and participate in interviews for two of the features in your paper ran.
The existence of the group that has entertained New River Valley and Roanoke-area residents for all those years is now in jeopardy.
The New Virginians are housed in the Virginia Tech department of music. While 90 percent of the labor associated with operating this group is performed by students on a volunteer basis, the university provides three full-time employees and has done so since the group's creation.
Budget cuts in state higher education have hit this department as hard as the rest of the university. The expanding department is starved for additional faculty and staff.
To make a long story short, the music department has informed the New Virginians that the three staff positions (director, technical director and secretary) will be given new duties within the music department.
If this plan goes through as planned sometime in May 1993, the group will cease to exist.
A group with such an ambitious performance schedule, such a musically rich and technically advanced show, cannot continue with student labor alone.
This situation is mired in university politics, making it difficult for current group members to do anything.
As a result, New Virginians alumni, show sponsors and other supporters have mounted a letter-writing campaign to the Virginia Tech administration from the president, to the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, to the music department head.
\ Tony Rice\ Virginia Tech Class of 1992\ Raleigh, N.C.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB