Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 13, 1993 TAG: 9309120320
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PHILIP WALZER and RUTH S. INTRESS FOR THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Old Dominion University is leading the way in technology. Last year, ODU offered 90 telecourses to more than 2,700 off-campus students in such fields as engineering and nursing.
Old Dominion envisions expanding its "Teletechnet" network to reach 12,000 students, primarily at community colleges across the state, by the next decade. The school wants $10 million from the state, but it estimates that using telecourses cuts the costs of instructing students in half.
The goal is to beam mostly technical upper-level courses so students at remote two-year schools can get their bachelor's degrees.
"It's an exciting idea," Gordon K. Davies, director of the State Council of Higher Education, said. "What ODU is proposing to do will bring access to higher education to a lot of people who wouldn't have it otherwise."
Critics, especially at the state's larger schools, caution that colleges risk losing the human touch, and losing students altogether, if they rely too heavily on technology. "The problem with television - and ODU will find this out - is it takes a lot of self-discipline for people to watch and listen," said Virginia Tech's president, James McComas. "The total number of people completing degrees in that route is low."
But ODU's provost, Jo Ann Gora, said the school has a strong record of graduating people in telecourse programs. She said the courses actually offer students plenty of pluses. Students off-site can question their professors, but they also can talk among themselves, without interrupting the lecture.
"You actually have more communication, but it's different than in a traditional kind of classroom," she said.
James Madison has built a "classroom of the 21st century." Student seats are equipped with computerized "voting" devices so professors can monitor whether they are grasping material as it's taught and review the hard parts.
In the fall, JMU also will open its College for Integrated Science and Technology for 85 students. They will study the interplay among science, technology, economics, policy-making and ethics. Normally such topics are departmentalized and studied separately. The emphasis in this college will be on how much students have learned, not how many minutes they've spent in class.
Here and there, professors also are experimenting with computers. At Christopher Newport University, philosophy Chairman George Teschner last year taught a course primarily through electronic messages, which he says actually increased one-on-one interaction. But Margaret A. Miller, associate director of the State Council of Higher Education, said colleges still are way behind: "At every institution, it's still marginal activity. Nowhere is it mainstream."
Although most four-year schools have resisted cutting academic programs, the state's community college system has dropped 50 programs since 1990, ranging from auto maintenance at Northern Virginia Community College to word processing at Thomas Nelson.
"The bulk of them were either very cost-intensive or they were going to be merged into other programs, or sometimes they didn't have enough student load," said Joy Graham, assistant chancellor of the community college system. "Community colleges are built upon flexibility."
But the University of Maryland at College Park proved that four-year colleges can do it, too. The school last year approved the elimination of the College of Human Ecology and seven other departments, including television, recreation and urban studies, to save $6 million.
"I think they were sensible, if somewhat traumatic, steps to take," said Robert Lissitz, chairman of both the Campus Senate and statistics department. "The only real way to save money is to do fewer things."
Some Virginia universities are starting to at least talk about major cuts.
VCU's "strategic plan for the future" calls for scaling back or eliminating about a half-dozen degrees or academic programs, including a master's in recreation, and dropping all remedial math and English classes. It also would eliminate duplicate courses in different departments. "We have seven Ph.D. programs that teach administration in one form or another," President Eugene P. Trani said.
This doesn't mean VCU has given up all dreams of expansion. Trani is pushing for state approval to start an undergraduate engineering program, promising that private funds will cover most costs. Virginia already has several engineering schools turning out more graduates than nearby states.
Virginia Tech has merged staffs in its registrar, admissions and financial aid sections. That didn't cut positions, but officials say it could curb growth and save $1 million a year. Beginning next year, all Tech administrators must return to the school 1.5 percent of their divisions' budgets. That $2 million pool will be reallocated to meet top priorities such as reducing class size and purchasing more technology.
Spokesman Larry Hincker said, "It's imbedding in the budgeting culture a cost consciousness that we can be more efficient the next year than the previous one."
The University of Virginia is considering closing its rhetoric and communication studies department and cutting enrollment by 10 percent in graduate programs.
Also under scrutiny is the web of special centers, such as UVa's Center for Public Service. The state spent $8 million for 27 major centers and institutes statewide this year.
In administrative cuts, Old Dominion has dropped two high-level positions, an executive vice president and one of two vice presidents for finance, saving a quarter of a million dollars a year, Vice President Richard A. Staneski said. But the number of administrative positions schoolwide has risen by two since 1990, he said.
by CNB