ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 6, 1996 TAG: 9604080009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
THE ROANOKE Valley, we and other Roanokers are accustomed to lamenting, is the state's largest metro area without a four-year public institution of higher education.
That's still true, and there's still a long way to go. But the announcement this week of two new Radford University programs to be offered at Virginia Western Community College offers additional evidence that the challenge is starting to be met - and in better ways than (a) converting two-year Virginia Western to a four-year institution or (b) building a new institution, either as a Virginia Western spinoff or entirely from scratch.
The former would cost Roanoke place in the state's community-college system. The latter would be costly, hence unlikely in the foreseeable future - and would run the risk of fostering the kind of unnecessary duplication that Virginia's restructuring colleges and universities are working to shed.
The pace appears to be quickening. Perhaps the biggest news about the Radford programs to be offered in Roanoke - one leading to a four-year degree in accounting, the other to a four-year degree in management - is that the news is no bigger than it is. The breakthrough came several months ago, with announcement of a Radford-Virginia Western degree-offering partnership in media studies, nursing, criminal justice and social work.
Nor is Radford the only state institution getting on the act. Old Dominion University in Norfolk has established a statewide distance-learning network called Teletechnet, geared for students within easy commuting distance of a community college but not of a state four-year institution.
Via Teletechnet - which uses two-way satellite technology to beam real-time lectures and discussions to community-college classrooms throughout the state - Old Dominion offers four-year degrees at Virginia Western in two engineering-technology programs.
A third front in the effort to expand higher-ed opportunities in Roanoke is the proposal to turn the old, now-vacated Norfolk & Western office buildings in downtown Roanoke into a higher-education center. The 1996 General Assembly appropriated money to begin planning for such a center. The idea is to house not only undergraduate offerings like those of the Radford-VIrginia Western partnership, but also graduate-education consortium that has outgrown its current location elsewhere in downtown.
The demand in Virginia for, and the value of, traditional undergraduate education won't vanish. It's important, too, that bells and whistles not deafen us to traditional issues of instructional technique and curricular content.
But nontraditional lifelong learning for older, working adults is higher education's growth area, a response to the demands of a new economic era. Opportunities are starting to bud for the Roanoke Valley, and they should be nurtured into full flower.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 linesby CNB