Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 11, 1994 TAG: 9402110091
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
James J. Buffer's decision to become executive director of the Center for Organizational and Technological Advancement comes one week after Tech told his college to figure out a way to cut one-fifth of its budget.
Tech Provost Fred Carlisle told the college to cut costs and to look at all possibilities, from cutting programs to considering removal of the office of the dean.
But both Buffer and Carlisle said the two events were not related.
"I've been angling for six months to try to get Jim Buffer" to head the corporate education center, Carlisle said. The two had been talking seriously about it for about three months.
The center, which would be linked to the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center, would educate managers and professionals in leadership, development and other topics, planners say.
Tech is hoping to get the General Assembly to allocate $3.5 million for it, part of a $5.5 million request for the conference center.
Tech spokesman David Nutter said it was important to get someone in place quickly to begin talking with business leaders.
"The university has recognized that we had this incredible need to get that program up and running," Nutter said.
Buffer's experience at Tech and in his former job at Ohio State University makes him attractive for the post, he and Carlisle said.
At Ohio State, Buffer said, he helped create a business-industry consortium that provided training, development and resource services to business and industry - companies such as Honda, NCR Corp. and McDonald's.
"We wrote prescriptions for improvement," he said.
For the past eight years, Buffer has been executive director of a management institute called the Central Association of College and University Business Officers. The organization has provided leadership development for 1,000 people through one-week courses, he said.
Carlisle hopes Buffer will be able to help the center in Roanoke succeed. It is envisioned as bringing cutting-edge information from the school to the workplace, and its supporters say it will bring more business to Roanoke, as well.
"The center is something that is very important to the university," Carlisle said. "We really needed someone with talent and experience and a real ability to make that center successful."
But the timing of Buffer's departure means more uncertainty for his present office.
"People will make a direct connection," Carlisle said. "I can't always control timing."
Even Buffer admits, "I wouldn't want my colleagues to think I was abandoning ship" in a time of crisis, he said. "When the 20 percent cuts were made, my first reaction was, `Hell, I'm not going to take another job.' "
He said he does not like what is happening at the college, that it will force some programs to be trimmed or eliminated, but "Education is not alone." Other programs - agriculture, Tech's extension service and the veterinary program - also have been hit hard by budget cuts.
Buffer said he decided to let the faculty know by letter Thursday, after Carlisle said he would try to have an interim dean named as early as Monday. Buffer will also stay on to help with the faculty promotion and tenure process in March.
Buffer will assume the director's job in March, but his exact date of resignation is undecided.
Carlisle said the move will not change the directive given to the college. An internal planning committee already is exploring ways to meet the financial demands.
"Obviously, a different person will have to assume leadership for the restructuring," Carlisle said.
by CNB