Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 15, 1993 TAG: 9302150295
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN L. FREI
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
PROPOSED `UNIVERSITY OF ROANOKE' NEED NOT BE A PIPE DREAM
WHEN I WAS first mulling over a slogan for the grass-roots effort now under way to promote the idea of a university situated in the Roanoke Valley, I came up with "Why not a University of Roanoke?" That idea was rejected because I was reasonably certain a few would oblige the question with an answer. Instead, I settled on a positive slogan: "Of Course! A University of Roanoke."I want to report that the number of positive responses received thus far far outweigh and outnumber any negatives. I am quite encouraged by the response and optimistic that we can get there from here.
Right now, our commonwealth is getting ready to spend $1 million in the next budget cycle to subsidize the students who want to go to school but cannot attend a state-supported institution because of overcrowding. The state intends to have the students pay what they would be paying at a state school, and the state would pay the balance of the higher tuitions to private colleges who can absorb this glut of students.
Averett College, a fine Baptist institution in Danville, is one private college asking the commonwealth (through Del. Whitt Clement) for $100,000 for a pilot program to get in on this subsidy.
Suggestions have been made, moreover, that the state might have to subsidize students who, because of overcrowding, are forced to go out of state to go to school, thus sending our tax dollars with them. The 65,000 students who will enter Virginia's four-year (and above) institutions in the next 10 years will have to go somewhere. There are many people who would like for some of those students to graduate from a school right here in the Roanoke Valley.
Many people ask, `Where would the money come from" for a University of Roanoke? Actually, as I understand it, not a lot of money would be necessary to get the show on the road. An urban university does not have to be just a place with dorms and a central campus, but rather it can be a living system combining diversified physical elements, feeding and being fed by the community. As to the question of the money, if we begin planning now and get on "the list," we'll be nearer the top of that list when money is available in the future. We needn't be overly concerned with a great deal of money to build great buildings and planting ivy around them just yet. If we set our sights now on a goal that could be implemented over a number of years, we'll begin a positive momentum from which our community will benefit. A university can start from a modest beginning. It can happen here if we want it to.
I submit this possible scenario:
Virginia Western Community College becomes a four-year college.
The Explore Project's endangered-animal program, along with the environmental initiatives for the park, could be accredited as a study discipline, becoming a contributing aspect of Virginia Western's degree program.
Later, or at the same time, Carilion's College of Health Sciences may see an advantage to combining its teaching functions with other liberal-arts curricula and might move to become what the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond became to the Richmond Polytechnic Institute when Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond was born.
In the meantime, other institutions who presently service the community in an educational capacity - the Harrison Center, Mill Mountain Theater, The Henry Street Jazz Center, the Roanoke Ballet Theater, etc. - might more closely align their efforts and support structures with those of the emerging institution.
It might take a year or so and a little money to accredit Virginia Western as a four-year institution and have its systems settle into place. While the university might be administratively centered at Virginia Western, its personality could encompass many existing facilities already present in the valley - including, no doubt, a "college of medicine" component. This would enhance Southwestern Virginia's regional academic dynamic. Our tax dollars would be well spent toward this permanent investment.
In a few short years, a university system could be in place, quite possibly maturing as "Virginia Western University."
The railroad and Dominion Bank are not coming back. The Roanoke Valley is now at an important economic crossroads. If Roanoke is looking for new cohesion and focus, a solid anchor if you will, we could do no better than to look to the larger economic umbrella that a university situated here can provide. It can't happen overnight, but an academic atmosphere would infuse additional energy and vitality into this community. The population enhancement of a student body, faculty, staff, administrative and technical personnel can expand our horizons.
As an additional ingredient, the many support enterprises that a university would require could bring about economic-development efforts that dwarf anything now on the menu. It could be the glue that fuses together the many enterprises here that presently enjoy limited success, and certainly would support and promote the success of the Hotel Roanoke Conference Center, the Roanoke Symphony, Jefferson Center and other efforts, not to mention the additional tax revenue that would accrue to each political jurisdiction where there is additional activity.
The Charlotte phone book's business white pages reveal about 40 businesses with the name "University" this or that, from University Animal Clinic to University Volvo, providing at least empirical evidence that economic enterprises revolve around and enjoy a connection with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. (In the metro Charlotte area, there are about seven private four-year colleges and several private business schools, not including UNC-Charlotte and Central Piedmont Community College. In fact, it seems to me that there is a college or university of some kind off every exit ramp in North Carolina.)
Resident students and faculty have to eat, do dry cleaning, buy shoes and socks, live somewhere, get their hair cut and so forth. The economic opportunities alone that feed and are fed by a university setting will make the Roanoke Valley a more vibrant community. Why not, indeed?
I'm told Roanoke is the only metropolitan area of its size in the United States without a university in its Metropolitan Statistical Area. What it's going to take to achieve this goal is to build a critical mass of support in our community that will echo in Richmond. It is my opinion, and that of my peers, that a University of Roanoke (or whatever its name might be) is the most positive direction we as a community can take.
A university in the valley could be the foundation of our future.
Dan L. Frei is managing partner of The Scooter Group, an advertising and consulting partnership based in Roanoke.