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

DATE: FRIDAY, September 16, 1994                   TAG: 9409160045
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

EDUCATION'S ENGINE COULD 'RUN REGION'

"Why not establish an 'I-81 Education Corridor,' designed to make the most of the educational resources up and down this stretch of interstate?" said Baliles, speaking at the Western Virginia Economic Development Conference, held at Virginia Tech.

"Why not make use of the brain power that coexists here with an intense interest in economic development?" Baliles asked the group, composed of politicians, higher education representatives and economic development coordinators. "Why not look at the entire I-81 corridor as one campus?"

The group, made up of representatives from governments and institutions situated along the interstate highway, began meeting three years ago to generate ideas about what they should be doing in terms of economic development.

With as many as 30 institutions of higher education - public and private colleges and community colleges - situated close to the interstate, Baliles said, Western Virginia should find a way to use them collectively to market the area to industry and businesses.

Portraying the area along I-81 as synonymous with a region of education could be comparable to the recognition given to Tidewater, known for its ports, or Northern Virginia's "Dulles corridor" of high-tech industries.

"It could be a terrific organizing force," said Baliles, who is chairman of the Southern Regional Education Board's Commission on Educational Quality.

"I think it's wonderful," said Beverly Fitzpatrick Jr., director of the New Century Council, an organization of about 900 residents of the New River and Roanoke valleys interested in forming a collective vision for much of Southwest Virginia.

"You can't have provincial feelings in Western Virginia," Fitzpatrick said. "Education is the engine that could run the region."

Ronald Carrier, president of James Madison University, said to Baliles: "You do not leave them without a challenge."

Tech President Paul Torgersen said future cooperation would be helpful, although he expressed some concern about Tech's getting "caught up in new initiatives."

Citing participation in the New Century Council, collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond on the formation of a new engineering college, and other efforts, he said, "I worry sometimes that we try to do too much for too many people."

But, "to the extent that this is a next step, we'd want to be a part of it."