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

DATE: SUNDAY, February 6, 1994                   TAG: 9402060038
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: D-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE                                LENGTH: Short

UVA PLANS TO CLOSE DEPARTMENT OF RHETORIC

The University of Virginia's Board of Visitors has voted to close the department of rhetoric and communications studies to save money.

Ray Nelson, dean of the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences, told the board Friday that eliminating the department would save the university $800,000. The university has a goal of cutting $1.5 million from its annual budget.

Nelson said a committee that studied the closing had concerns about the condition of the department, which has only three tenured professors.

A committee report said the department is "as fragmented as the joint department name suggests" and its course of study "is now so well integrated into other studies that a separate department is no longer necessary."

The department's six nontenured faculty members will lose their jobs next year, said Bernard Mayes, director of the department. The tenured professors will be transferred to other departments.

The department offers a range of courses on speech and the media, including History of Communication, Public Speaking and the Rhetoric of the United Nations. It will remain open until the end of the 1994-95 school year, allowing its 100 majors to graduate.

To partly replace the department, the university plans to create an interdisciplinary modern-media studies program in two years. The program would not have faculty of its own, but would draw from courses in the history, English, philosophy, psychology and sociology departments.

by CNB