ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 20, 1996 TAG: 9611200028
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LYNN HOPEWELL
IN YOUR Nov. 2 editorial, ``The nation, alas, notices Virginia,'' you once again misuse the State Council of Higher Education as a tool to politically pound on Gov. George Allen. This time you have gone too far.
You have personally attacked our chairman, Elizabeth McClanahan, have insulted the other 10 members of our council, and have misled the public about our activities.
You said that McClanahan's election ended a nonpolitical custom of elevating the vice chairman to the chairmanship. If this is a ``custom,'' why is it that neither I nor the other two new council appointees were contacted and told of this custom? No one asked the new appointees for our opinion as to who should be elected as vice chairman either.
Ignoring the three new members backfired, and it's just as well. An open election by majority rule is certainly less partisan than the elitist ``custom'' of the back-room deal. This is one custom that deserved to die.
Your claim that McClanahan went ``behind the backs of the council's professional staff, to the governor's Department of Planning and Budget, to get enrollment forecast methods more to her liking'' is particularly outrageous. She did no such thing. (She couldn't anyway; she has only one vote.) The outside expert's review of the council's enrollment methodology originated from discussions of the entire council in public session in late 1995, months before McClanahan was elected. Shame on you for this particularly shoddy lie. How dare you shade the facts to support your political attacks?
Enrollment projections are one of our most important products, and our job is to see that they are well-founded. Our staff isn't infallible, nor would they claim to be. Nor are they the crybabies you portray them as being. An occasional review by outside experts isn't ``micro-management;'' it's just good management. The review paid off, and the enrollment-projection methodology is being changed to incorporate improvements which will resound to the benefit of all Virginians.
You claim we were ``interfering'' with the staff. When an editor at The Roanoke Times checks a reporter's story, is he ``interfering?'' The council staff are our employees. Their job is to implement the policies that the council, with their help, specifies. We are duty-bound to oversee their work. You say we were being ``political.'' I say we were just doing our job.
What your editorial did was what unprincipled losers in an argument always seem to do in these days of low civility in public debate. When they can't win on the merits, they stoop to ad hominem attacks. Your editorial demonized a woman who is one of the most energetic and visionary members of our council. Under her leadership, the council is reaching out to the higher-education community as never before. You gratuitously insult the rest of us by implying that we are simply McClanahan's (or the governor's) lackeys without principles.
You fail to explain why organizing into committees and working harder and longer is an ``assault on Virginia's tradition of nonpartisan, professional management of its higher-education system.'' We need our professional staff as never before. Nothing we have done has had any policy implications. We have focused only on managing our own affairs more effectively. The question is not why we organized into committees, but rather, why it took us 40 years to adopt modern management techniques used by boards everywhere.
Our council is selected without regard to political affiliation. We are not elected and are not running for office. This nonpolitical, unpaid, volunteer council member, with a son about to attend one of Virginia's fine colleges - and who didn't know George Allen from George Burns a few years ago - wonders if for the rest of his term he will be insulted by more of the Times' rhetoric.
The notion that I or any other council member has any other motive than doing a good job is typical of the slander that has come to characterize the if-there-is-no-controversy-make-some-up school of journalism and the if-you-don't-agree-with-them-call-'em-names school of political debate. We don't mind you attacking our ideas. We are not infallible. But to attack the personal character of people you know nothing about is shameful. You owe us all an apology, but especially Elizabeth McClanahan.
Lynn Hopewell of Warrenton is a recent appointee to the State Council of Higher Education.
LENGTH: Medium: 78 linesby CNB