Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 13, 1993 TAG: 9309120321
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RUTH S. INTRESS and PHILIP WALZER FOR THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Businesses, government agencies and bureaucracies have faced today's tough economy with operational changes and massive restructuring.
But not Virginia's four-year colleges.
College officials lambaste the state for cutting their budgets by one-fifth, but evidence shows they've done little to restrain their appetites for bigger staffs and fatter programs. For every small but promising start, there has been enough expansion to overshadow it.
Gordon K. Davies, director of the State Council of Higher Education, says schools have let the state and taxpayers down. The council advises and oversees schools but has little regulatory power over them.
The state approved millions for financial aid and allowed double-digit tuition increases providing schools looked to restructure, Davies said. "As far as I am concerned, the governor and the General Assembly have kept their part of the bargain, but we haven't kept ours."
To be sure, schools have substantially cut spending on maintenance, library purchases and faculty travel - stealth cuts, easily made, not widely felt, not hotly debated. They have skirted fundamental changes for:
Fat administrations: Money tied up in bureaucracies could be used for teaching. The University of Virginia has four openings in the office of President John Casteen, who in 1992-93 had a staff of 16. Gov. Douglas Wilder said: "I run the state, and I don't have as many aides and assistants."
Academic bloat: Universities haven't closed academic departments or degree programs with low enrollments. Instead, they're pushing to expand. Old Dominion University, which has closed no departments, is adding a bachelor's degree in women's studies and a master's in creative writing.
Luxury Services: Fees soar for services like a steakhouse at James Madison University and a convocation hall yet to be built at ODU, which is costing students $59 a year. Students are required to pay.
Up to one-third of JMU's student fees and one-fifth of UVa's go to athletics. Sports spending has increased by 60 percent since 1986 at JMU and Virginia Commonwealth University.
"Things have to change," said Wilder. "Once the public finds out just how their tax dollars are being spent, especially at state-supported schools, they'll say, `Why so?' "
There have been a few recent moves to improve efficiency.
Last year, Old Dominion offered 90 telecourses to more than 2,700 off-campus students in fields like engineering and nursing. Critics caution that the human touch is lost and few will get degrees this way. But ODU Provost Jo Ann Gora said ODU has a strong record of graduating people in telecourse programs.
JMU built a "classroom of the 21st century" with computerized "voting devices" enabling professors to monitor whether students are grasping material as it's presented. This fall, JMU will open its College for Integrated Science and Technology, which will emphasize how much students have learned rather than how many minutes they've spent in class.
Such moves are more than defrayed by growth.
A review of recent budgets at James Madison, UVa and Virginia Commonwealth shows staffs have grown despite state aid cuts. In every case administrative and staff growth outpaced faculty expansion. In the community college system, on the other hand, administrative cuts outpaced faculty cuts.
"I sometimes think we do have too many administrators," said JMU President Ronald E. Carrier. "But when I look at it - and I do look at it - I see these people doing things we didn't do before."
James Madison economics Professor Andrew Kohen said there's been an overflow of midlevel administrators. "You get assistant deans and associate deans. In some places, I understand we have associate department heads."
Even during a 1990-92 state wage freeze, college employees received raises the state allowed for promotions, to support gender equity and to counter competitive offers. At UVa, for example, the $100,000-plus-a-year provost and law school dean each received a $25,000 increase.
UVa gave $16.5 million in raises during the period; VCU gave $14.6 million, Virginia Tech $4.2 million, William and Mary $2.6 million and George Mason University $2.4 million.
Academic and degree programs sprouted in the past decade when money was plentiful. Schools are finding it difficult to shut such programs down. Most cuts have come through mergers.
Virginia Tech, the state's largest school with 75 departments, combined four departments to create two, and UVa merged two departments. William and Mary dropped its master's in museum history, saving $35,000.
Norfolk State and Old Dominion, state-supported universities in the same city, are supposed to avoid duplicating programs, but they have more than 20 common majors.
Davies, the higher education council director, said, "Departments come into being because they meet a perceived need. It is counterintuitive to think they meet all those needs forever."
Virginia'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 Virginia community college system.
State records show more than 140 bachelor's degree programs produced fewer than 10 graduates last year. Norfolk State led with 28, followed by Radford with 15 and ODU with 14.
More than 45 programs had fewer than four graduates, including geophysics and seismology at Tech, dance at Radford, earth and planetary sciences at Longwood and general home economics at Norfolk State.
University officials say some departments with few majors, like philosophy and physics, provide courses to students in other fields. Others are just traditional.
"I can't imagine a university without a classics department," said David J. Lutzer, faculty dean in arts and sciences at William and Mary, which had five full-time classics teachers and six graduates in 1992.
But some Virginia schools are starting to cut.
VCU's board this fall is expected to approve a plan to cut administrative costs 15 percent, scaling back or eliminating about a half-dozen degrees or academic programs and dropping remedial math and English. It would eliminate duplicate courses in different departments.
Virginia Tech merged, but didn't cut, staffs in its registrar, admissions and financial aid sections. Tech administrators will be required to save 1.5 percent of their division budgets, totaling $2 million a year.
UVa may close its rhetoric and communication studies department and cut enrollment by 10 percent in graduate programs.
In the past year, George Mason University has cut one of three vice provosts, the graduate school dean and a vice presidency for computing.
Such changes don't begin to counteract burgeoning tuition and fees.
JMU students are tantalized by 250 clubs, a school-owned residence in London for exchange programs, a summer dinner theater, two radio stations, a steakhouse and cable television in dorm rooms. They pay for it, too. JMU's mandatory activity fees total $1,968 this year, the state's highest.
Elsewhere, students pay for video collections in libraries, food courts in student unions and high-tech weight rooms in recreation centers. At UVa they'll contribute $2 for a fall film festival instigated by board member Patricia Kluge.
At virtually all four-year schools, mandatory student fees cover a full range of career advising programs and health and mental health services. These self-supporting enterprises receive no state funds but have become big business. They consume nearly half JMU's budget.
"Do you want bare-bone programs or do you want quality? This is how we define quality," said Terry Knight, JMU's budget director. Every year, JMU receives 12,000 applications for 2,000 freshman slots.
But JMU senior Laura McClintock said: "I don't think it's much of a coincidence that JMU has very high fees and students have little say. If students had some say, 40 percent of our fees wouldn't go for athletics."
Students are borrowing more money than ever, working after classes and sitting out semesters to raise money for rising tuition and fees.
"The schools are going to be forced to look at what they're doing," said James Dyke, former Virginia secretary of education. "They can't continue business as usual."
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