Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511200053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
She's got this great spot overlooking an inspiring campus. One of the leaders in her field - college student affairs - is her adviser.
But now, she says, she's simply trying to remain calm. For Munro, who decided one weekend last July to quit her job, move to Virginia, and enter graduate school, President Paul Torgersen's decision to merge Virginia Tech's College of Education with another college comes out of the blue.
"I'm sort of disturbed by the whole thing," Munro said.
What difference does it make to a student's career?
"From what I understand," said Amy Spelke, Munro's office mate, "a school of education is not as prestigious as a college of education."
For almost two years, nearly everyone at the college, under strict orders to restructure, has worked to cut $1.6 million - 20 percent of the budget. Wayne Worner, a professor and expert in administrative mergers, was installed as interim dean to lead the change. The faculty has dropped to 92 from well over 100 last year. In May, 166 people graduated from the college.
And then, this.
"All of a sudden. With no warning, no faculty input," Munro said. "I definitely feel there's another agenda."
Munro is not alone.
Since Torgersen last week pulled the plug on the search for a new dean and ordered a study to look into merging the college with another, professors around the Drill Field have quietly wondered: What about the shared decision-making that marks campus life?
"If it happens to us, it could happen anywhere in this university," retiring education professor Darrel Clowes said.
As the week drew to a close, Torgersen himself said his timing could have been better.
"I was constrained or forced by time because a search committee was being activated," he said. "A better way of doing this, if we had had time ... I would have met with selected groups of faculty.
"Somehow, people like to be told in advance. And I didn't."
But he defends his authority to eliminate the dean's office.
State political pressures for colleges to cut staff have been dramatic. Torgersen, at the behest of Cliff Garvin, the rector of the Board of Visitors, is trying to complete a new master plan that maps out the university's direction between now and the year 2000. A draft of that report is due in February.
Dean of Arts and Sciences Robert Bates said the change could improve collaboration among the colleges. His college has been mentioned, along with the College of Human Resources, as a possible merger mate.
But "we don't have lots of schools here, so it would appear that the change from college to school, in the eyes of many faculty, would be sort of downgrading," he said. "There will be an identity that continues on. For students, this may be less of a concern than for faculty who are thinking about their professional visibility."
One undergraduate student, who asked that his name not be used, is still worried.
"If it suddenly gets shuffled into some other college, will it have the same resources?" said the student, who is studying instructional technology. "What priorities are they going to have to meet the needs of our department?"
Two of five full-time professors in his department have left in the past year. They were replaced by two temporary teachers. Among the departed, he said, is "one of the innovators in the field."
No one knows exactly what form the new college will take.
Torgersen promises that nobody will lose a job, a pledge he reiterated Thursday night when confronted by a college employee at a staff senate meeting. He also promises that all students will be able to complete their programs. His idea is to merge the education professors into other, more specialized fields, such as math or biology. He says that cutting the dean's office - to be vacated this summer anyway with Worner's retirement - will save $250,000. Worner questions that figure, saying salaries of administrators - who also teach - may amount to something closer to $50,000.
And Worner, who rallied the troops in February 1994, isn't sure he can do it again. Several months ago, he took an early retirement offer from the university and intends to depart next summer.
"I essentially have no capacity to lead at this point," said Worner, who describes the merger as "a shotgun wedding."
"My credibility kind of went out the window with a change I had no involvement with."
He said Friday that he has asked Provost Peggy Meszaros to meet with his faculty.
Terry Wildman, a longtime faculty member, referred to Torgersen's words during a meeting last week that all involved say was not a happy gathering.
"The language the president used [was] that the college would be transferred, intact, with all its programs to another college. We have little precedent to go on. We were told to restructure the college and we did and thought that was it. Now this has occurred.
"So it really is difficult to predict what's going to happen next."
What does it mean for a college to disappear?
Some say the prestige of the programs weakens.
"I'd much prefer to get a degree from a college of education," Munro, the graduate student, said.
Retiring professor Clowes, who returned last week from a national conference on higher education policy, called the change "a political expression."
Given the political climate in Virginia, Clowes said Torgersen seems to be "reacting to forces outside the university."
"Whatever he deals with, he thought he had to make some gesture to the ideologues in Richmond. And we were the sacrificial lamb."
by CNB