Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 8, 1994 TAG: 9412080047
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Virginia Tech is likely within days to extend a job offer to a new provost, while Radford University is in the midst of a national search for a new president.
Will they be able to fill the vacancies?
According to a decision announced late Wednesday by Secretary of Education Beverly Sgro, schools may fax their emergency hiring requests to her office by noon each day and hope she'll grant an exemption within 48 hours.
"We're not going to let it bog down our office," Sgro said late Wednesday, acknowledging the potential for a paper flood.
Hiring exemptions, routed also through the Department of Planning and Budget, will be granted "wherever necessary to avoid interruptions in instruction," states a memo from Sgro that was dispatched to the state's college and university presidents Wednesday. "The objective of the governor's executive order is to eliminate waste and unnecessary hiring, not to impair necessary services or educational quality."
Sgro will not put a quota on exemptions and will rely on schools to help her make her decisions. "Just think, if you had a secretary in the president's office, an administrative office, and one of the academic departments. I'm not in any position to choose among those three," she said in the interview.
"That's a decision the institution has to make."
The exemption program was unveiled a day after Allen's office seemed to override a Dec. 5 directive from Sgro. In a Richmond newspaper story, Allen press secretary Ken Stroupe said Sgro's memo, which appeared to grant blanket exemptions to faculty, graduate assistants, police and the like, did not. Stroupe said the memo merely outlined the types of jobs that could be exempted on a case-by-case basis.
Sgro denied Wednesday that she and the governor's office were out of step.
"We're not speaking on different pages at all," she said. "We're very congruent. It's always been the expectation on our part that we would go back to the [university] presidents and say, 'Here's how to apply for an exemption.' We'll work with them to make sure they can teach classes," she said.
Tech's executive vice president, Minnis Ridenour, said he could not comment on Sgro's new plans until today when he has a chance to talk to her office.
He did speculate that an exemption for a job like that of provost, the university's chief academic officer, would likely be approved.
Likewise, the rector of the Radford University Board of Visitors, Bernard Wampler, said he had received assurance from Sgro's office that the presidential search could go on.
One person in Sgro's office will devote full time to exemptions, to be granted for individual, "critical" positions, or on a blanket basis for "seasonal and episodic" jobs. Those include some of the 2,300 student workers who fill jobs at Tech that range from dormitory to dining hall chores. University administrators say those typically are revolving-door jobs, with students coming and going, but are crucial to the operation of the campus.
It's also the start of the hiring season for faculty at universities. Radford hires an average of 16 new members a year. At its New College of Global Studies, six new faculty members may be hired.
What would happen without them?
"It would seriously slow down, if not put at risk, our ability to launch our program," Provost Meredith Strohm said.
For his part, Stroupe backed Sgro, Tech's former dean of students.
"She's very sensitive right now, coming from an academic background ... that this is the time period in which [college and universities] have traditionally dealt with matters of employment," he said.
by CNB