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

DATE: SUNDAY, January 8, 1995                   TAG: 9501090007
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COLLEGES' HEALTH DEPENDS ON CONTINUITY

The plan required colleges to lose a little weight, do some streamlining, some reassessing, some fixing. Part of the goal: To cut out overlaps and duplication. To let the state's unique universities do what they did best. To present colleges that were leaner and meaner, but still healthy, still respected nationwide and worldwide.

Community colleges would take care of remedial teaching. Four-year colleges would focus on higher education and higher admissions standards. Virginia Tech, known for its prowess in engineering and technical pursuits, would focus on that. Tech would not add to its curricula, say, a medical school, because that was covered by the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University among others.

To a reporter covering higher education, it made sense. It still does.

But that vision appears to have faded.

OK. New governor, new ideas - that's the way its supposed to be. But where's the continuity?

The State Council of Higher Education, which was introduced in 1956 and charged with coordinating the state's public colleges and universities, was supposed to provide some of that. But under Gov. Allen's budget, the state council would lose $4.25 million worth of its power. And plans for education would take a different turn.

Allen's budget also has Tech losing funding for its renowned extension and forestry programs - some of the best programs the school has to offer.

Meanwhile, VCU is to receive funds - $.5 million - to plan a new school of engineering, when Tech already offers a program that is rated in the Top 25 in the country. The idea is to have Tech and VCU collaborate on the school, which will use mostly private funding. Together, the schools will develop, among others, a program in biomedical engineering - a step in the right direction. But electrical engineering? Mechanical? The goal, VCU says in its mission statement, is "attracting the best and brightest engineering students from across the region." Supposedly, Tech already does that. There is a danger here, and the state should beware.

Radford University's College of Global Studies - an original program that was supposed to propel education to the future - is losing all of its funding, too, with cuts so severe the university has decided not to put up a fight.

It's obvious that Tech, Radford and other universities will have to take it on the chin in some areas. An obvious solution for the schools would be to raise tuition, but they can't. Allen wants to cap it at the rate of inflation. So they're stuck.

My argument is not with streamlining - we all need to tighten our belts now and then. But education has already trimmed its fat. Now, it is the time to do some toning.

Make the good programs great. Help outdated programs keep up with the times. And don't build anew what's already there, strong, sturdy and concrete.

Madelyn Rosenberg is this newspaper's assistant New River editor.