ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 19, 1997 TAG: 9704210055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PHILIP WALZER LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
The State Council of Higher Education's decision to fire Davies has academics worried.
More mandates, less support.
That's what academics and college supporters fear they'll get from Richmond in the wake of the dismissal of Gordon Davies as director of the State Council of Higher Education. The council's members, appointed by Gov. George Allen, voted 7-3 Tuesday not to renew Davies' contract, which expires in June.
On campus, said William Drewry, chairman of Old Dominion University's Faculty Senate, there's an ``overwhelming feeling of concern ... about who is going to be appointed in his place and how much damage could possibly be done in the next year or so.''
The worries across Virginia campuses boil down to a future with more micromanagement and less backing for college funding increases, specifically for faculty raises. But Norfolk lawyer John Padgett, the vice chairman of the council, said Friday that those fears are unwarranted.
Council members, he said, ``think faculty salaries are probably the most important component of our budget.''
Padgett added, ``We have no intention of changing our relationship with colleges and universities. We don't have the [legal] ability to micromanage; we don't have the desire to micromanage.''
Davies, 58, has been director of the state council for 20 years and was an unwavering voice for increased state funding for colleges, especially for faculty salaries - often bumping heads with governors. Virginia now ranks among the eight states with the lowest state funding per student, and its colleges rank in the bottom half in surveys on faculty pay.
He has also prodded colleges to ``restructure'' by, for example, nudging up teaching loads and squeezing down administrative budgets. But academics credit him for forestalling any political pressure to, say, mandate teaching loads or abolish tenure.
Paul Metz, president of Virginia Tech's Faculty Senate, considers Davies a ``levee'' - or buffer against too much intrusion from Richmond. Without him, Metz said, ``people are worried ... that higher education is going to be more politicized than ever before and that higher education will face more micromanagement than ever before.''
Not all professors support Davies.
J.J. Leary, a James Madison University chemistry professor, said Davies has approved new campus buildings too readily. ``As a result,'' Leary said, ``many institutions are committed to expensive construction projects that have spawned bizarre curricula.'' But at Virginia Tech, Metz said, ``I haven't heard anybody who's happy he's leaving.''
Padgett, the vice chairman, said the council doesn't want a "lapdog" as a replacement. ``We expect the executive director to think freely.'' But Padgett added: ``If and when the council members adopt a position, we expect the executive director to support it.''
Last month, the council's chairwoman, Abingdon attorney Elizabeth McClanahan, proposed tightening grade requirements for receiving state-awarded financial aid. Davies publicly objected to the proposal, which is still being considered.
The issue was not the reason the council voted to terminate Davies, Padgett said, but it illustrated a tension point between the members and the director. After McClanahan made her comments, he said, ``we wouldn't expect an executive director to take a position contrary to that. That's crossing the line.''
On Tuesday, council members refused to discuss their reasons for firing Davies, other than to point to a desire for ``new leadership'' and a breakdown in ``chemistry'' between council members and Davies.
Davies' authority and independence were virtually unchecked by previous boards of the agency. But within the last year, Allen's appointees - three of whom are former assistants to the Republican governor - have tried to carve out a greater role for themselves and have clashed with Davies and his staff on some issues.
Davies has had a solid relationship with legislators, primarily Democrats, but he was appointed director in 1977 by a Republican governor, Mills Godwin. And his strong supporters include Republican Sen. John Chichester of Fredericksburg, the co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
Lt. Gov. Don Beyer, who will be be the Democratic candidate for governor this year, on Friday criticized the council's decision to oust Davies, who he said ``brought stature to Virginia's colleges and universities.''
If he is elected, Beyer said, he will ``not clean house on Gov. Allen's appointees'' to the council, although he might replace some of them. Major turnover - such as occurred on the state council and university boards in recent years - threatens the ``continuity of leadership,'' he said.
But Beyer said he will propose the creation of an independent panel that would recommend appointees to university boards and the state council - an idea that appears in a report Davies released Friday.
``While some [recent appointments] have reflected wisdom,'' Beyer said, ``there have also been a number of appointments that have been hard to understand ... It's very important to me that colleges and universities be represented by the best people we can find and be as independent of short-term political pressure as possible.''
Calls to the campaign office of state Attorney General Jim Gilmore, who will be Beyer's Republican opponent, were not returned.
Davies and a coalition of Virginia business leaders have pushed for more college funding, with faculty raises as the centerpiece. ``Higher education did have an advocate within the [political] establishment,'' said Drewry, of ODU. ``The concern is that that advocacy is going to disappear.''
No matter how talented his successor, said Del. Paul Council, D-Southampton County, chairman of the House Education Committee, Davies will be a tough act to follow: ``He has such a good relationship with the General Assembly and with the institutions of higher education, and I think he has public support. When you put these three ingredients together, that's very unusual. Virginia is going to suffer when we don't have him.''
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