ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 29, 1997 TAG: 9701290020
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
Boosting faculty salaries and student financial aid headline the $200 million request to legislators from a coalition of state universities, but Virginia Tech and Radford University still hope the state can come up with a few bucks for projects of their own.
A few million dollars, as a matter of fact, which will compete for the state's $250 million surplus. In addition to their individual programs, both schools are hoping faculty salaries raises will go up from the 2 percent already budgeted this year to 6 percent.
Tech is asking the General Assembly for $5.2 million to make up for the 1,005 Virginia students it has been subsidizing for the past few years - ever since higher education suffered deep budget cuts in the early 1990s. While tuition has made up $3,500 of the $8,900 average it costs Tech to educate each student each year, the university itself has had to cover that cost by cutting other expenses, said spokesman Larry Hincker.
Last year, the legislature "acknowledged this is a problem" with a $200,000 appropriation, but that's not enough, said Minnis Ridenour, Tech's executive vice president.
Also high on Tech's wish list is $5 million more for its Advanced Communications and Information Technology Building, in addition to $10 million the General Assembly gave the project last year.
This is the building proposed at the intersection of The Mall and the Drillfield. It will connect to Newman Library via a stone skybridge over The Mall that will double as a reading room.
The university had expected to raise $5 million in federal funds and $10 million from private donors to make up the balance of the $25 million building, Ridenour said. But Tech officials discovered that the federal government is more interested in spending money on equipment - not buildings - so now they've proposed something of a swap.
The federal money now would be raised for equipment instead of building. And then "we won't need state support for equipment," Ridenour said, except for routine maintenance.
New to Tech's list of amendments is $1.4 million to launch the "Mathematics Emporium." It's a new initiative that would promote advanced, and new, teaching and learning techniques in a lab open 24 hours a day - and staffed the entire time. Technology would be a key part of the center.
Radford University's Business Assistance Center, meantime, offers programs that do everything from show entrepreneurs how to write a business plan, to introduce them to bankers who can help them get loans. Last year, $300,000 of its budget was drawn directly from university operating coffers, and director Jerry M. Kopf said the plan now is to get the state to pick up the tab.
Its $400,000 request includes $294,000 for the center's seven employees and the balance for rent, computers, phone lines or travel, he said. The travel, Kopf pointed out, is primarily for staff to visit businesses for training and development.
Radford continues its efforts to offer educational programs through other schools in the region. Among its requests:
* $85,000 to offer graduate programs in counselor education and social work, and possibly other programs, at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center in Abingdon.
* $137,000 to pay for new courses at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke. Last year, the General Assembly approved $250,000 out of a $1.16 million request. Currently, more than 300 Roanoke area students have taken courses in the program, which allows VWCC graduates to enter Radford in their junior year.
Tech also is coming up with programs that work with other schools. Among its other requests:
* $54,100 to pay for a new worker who would help set up a Culinary Arts Professional Training Program between Tech and Virginia Western. The Hotel Roanoke may become the program's lab, Ridenour said.
* $950,000 for graduate programs taught at Tech's Northern Virginia Graduate Center, which it shares with the University of Virginia.
The two legislative money committees have until midnight Sunday to come up with their budgets.
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1997by CNB