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

DATE: FRIDAY, February 4, 1994                   TAG: 9402040137
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

EDUCATION COLLEGE FACES CUTS

Tech Provost Fred Carlisle told the college Tuesday to find a way cut 20 percent - $1.6 million - from its annual operations and salary budget of $8 million.

According to a memorandum from Carlisle's office, the college should consider:

Reducing administrative costs, "including serious consideration of possible elimination of the existing office of the dean."

Consolidating programs "that give primary focus to schools and their problems." Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said Tech wants the college to focus on programs that have a direct impact on kindergarten to 12th grade education in the state.

Merging departments - or even the college with another. That could lop off chunks of overhead costs. Removing a department head and secretary could save up to $150,000, Hincker said.

When the plan is worked out, the school could lose up to 30 faculty positions, said college Associate Dean Larry Harris. The cuts would go into effect in 1995.

Hincker said the directive was aimed at getting the college to improve some things that are "maybe not in line with their focus."

But some inside the school question that redirection of focus, and wonder if the college is being singled out because it doesn't have the support or prestige of other schools in the university.

"While focusing on the needs and problems of K-12 education is certainly important," said one department head, who requested anonymity, "a lot of education goes on past age 18."

The College of Education may be vulnerable because it is smaller than other colleges on campus, its graduates make less money and its alumni base isn't as vocal, the department head said.

While the education college has an $8 million budget, the College of Engineering gets $29 million, the College of Arts and Sciences, $42 million, Hincker said.

If cuts like this were proposed for the College of Engineering, the department head said, "There'd be such an uproar . . . that this would never happen."

A planning committee inside the college had been looking at restructuring the school for a year, Harris said, but the provost's "general reaction was that our plan was not bold enough."

"Without a club - and I would say that a 20 percent reduction in budget is a club - people don't take [the committee's ideas] seriously," Harris said.

Hincker took pains to describe the action as part of an ongoing streamlining in all parts of the university - and higher education across Virginia.

"It's tough on anybody when you go through retrenchment," Hincker said.