ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, June 5, 1996 TAG: 9606050077
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
On Aug. 1, 1961, when New River Community College was still in its original incarnation as the New River Vocational-Technical School in Radford, Doug Warren joined its faculty one day before his 21st birthday.
He was its related studies department head through 1969, which meant he supervised its math, sciences, blueprint reading, English, human relations and economics programs.
When the school became a community college in 1970 and moved to its Dublin campus, Warren moved with it as chairman of its Engineering Technologies, Business Services and Health Occupations Division.
In 1972, when the college had grown to the point where those areas were separated into individual divisions, he became chairman of the Engineering and Industrial Technology Division supervising 15 full-time faculty members and 10 to 15 part-time faculty.
He was named dean of academic and student services in 1984, supervising six division chiefs covering all academic functions and student services at the college. In 1994, he became dean of financial and administrative services.
NRCC President Ed Barnes said Warren was what amounted to the first chief executive officer of the school, leading its transformation from a vocational-technical center to a community college. Warren spent his entire professional life at the school, serving under four presidents and two interim presidents.
Now NRCC will have to get along without him. Warren retired this month and was named dean emeritus during this year's graduation ceremony. Dana Hamel, the founding chancellor of Virginia's community college system, attended just so he could present the dean emeritus medallion to Warren.
"For 35 years, I have been the textbook case of an introvert," Warren remarked later at a dinner and roast in his honor, which made him late that night for a meeting of the Pulaski County Planning Commission on which he sits.
That remark may have been the funniest thing said at the roast. Warren has not exactly been known as shy and retiring during his decades in education.
In fact, the roasters had gotten hold of a film from years past in which Warren - often clad in an outfit more suitable for a lead in the the 1980 movie, "The Blues Brothers," one of his favorites - performed physical clowning which would have done the Three Stooges proud. He is also the instigator of the "Wilkie" award, which he named for NRCC Distance Learning Coordinator Tom Wilkinson and which has become a tongue-in-cheek tradition over the years.
He once took off on a bicycle trip across the country.
People at the roast fondly recalled Warren humming to himself as he walked through the halls of NRCC, jingling pocket change, or working at home on his blueberries or collection of cars.
He earned all his degrees - a bachelor's in 1962 and master's in 1969 from Virginia Tech, and doctorate in higher education administration from Auburn University in 1976 - while working full time at the school.
During 1970-71, he was one of 20 educators in the country to participate in a one-year project at Auburn to develop community and junior college leaders for the South, and served as president that year of a project community college.
Warren said he is not actually the senior staff member at NRCC. Roger Atkins, in its Industrial Technologies Division, has 11/2 years on him. The vocational-technical center which evolved into NRCC had opened in 1959 with 40 students, and today NRCC has some 4,000.
Warren recalled arriving at the vocational-technical center to see four men tearing out a wall to enlarge a classroom. He figured they were maintenance men. Actually, they were four of the center's five faculty members.
"I was the sixth faculty member to come on board, and I was called the related subjects instructor," he said. It was originally located in the building now housing the Virginia Employment Commission office in Radford.
Grading, he recalled, included such factors as attitude, initiative and analytical ability with everything averaged into one single grade for each student at the bottom of the report card. "It was an attempt at that time for sending a message for potential employers," he said. "If anybody ever comes across one of those, that's something that ought to be preserved as a relic in the archives of the college."
High-tech engineering involved slide rules when he started, Warren said, and word-processing involved manual typewriters and spirit duplicators.
Other sites besides Dublin were considered for NRCC before the selection was made, he recalled. "One of the sites where we could have been ... is where the New River Valley Mall is now situated."
Warren said he took advantage himself of many NRCC offerings, such as art, electronics, music appreciation which led to his banjo-picking, and even aviation ground school that led to him flying an airplane.
"It's been like working in a candy store, in one sense. You can always snack on the goodies. In fact, you ought to," he said. "I'm leaving with a whole lot more than I came in with."
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines Type first letter of feature OR type help for list of commands FIND S-DB DB OPT SS WRD QUIT QUIT Save options? YES NO GROUP YOU'VE SELECTED: QUIT NO login: cby CNB