THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 22, 1994 TAG: 9409220009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By JAMES V. KOCH
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
This spring, the General Assembly of the commonwealth charged each public university with producing a ``restructuring plan'' by Sept. 1 to describe its current and future plans to redeploy faculty, serve additional students and become more efficient. Institutions failing to produce a satisfactory plan risk losing a portion of their budgets, which already have suffered a great deal - Virginia now ranks in the bottom 10 states in terms of its tax support per higher-education student. This mandate has produced a flurry of productive activity in public higher education. Old Dominion University's response to the directive provides an excellent example.
Old Dominion's restructuring efforts have been going on for some years. The report enabled us to point out that we already are quite efficient and that we spend our funds wisely:
Between 1989 and 1994, Old Dominion increased the share of its budget devoted to ``instruction'' (hiring of faculty for classrooms) by 6 percent - with a comparable proportionate decline in expenditures for administration and support.
Old Dominion's TELETECHNET distance-learning partnership with the Virginia Community College System already educates more than 1,000 students in 13 different sites around Virginia, and will educate 12,000 students at half the on-campus cost by the year 2000.
Old Dominion spends almost $2,000 less per student from the commonwealth than the average for doctoral institutions in Virginia.
Old Dominion's cost efficiency has resulted from actions such as:
Privatizing its printing operation and saving $90,000.
Eliminating two vice-presidential slots and moving 23 administrative positions from 12-month appointments to 11, 10 or nine-month appointments.
Creating more than two dozen partnerships with private firms and government agencies (ranging from area hospitals to the Urban League, CEBAF, The Nature Conservancy, TCC and NSU) that enable it to share resources and provide better education at a lower cost.
But, even more impressive actions are on the horizon:
Privatizing portions or all of the University's food service, motor pool, microcomputer repair and health service will generate savings in the area of $500,000.
Reducing the number of telephone lines by 10 percent will save about $75,000.
Saving $100,000 by implementing additional energy-conservation measures.
Saving $1 million by means of an early retirement program for faculty.
Streamlining student admissions, enrollment and records systems by use of new technology enabling students on or off campus to inspect their transcripts, pay bills and register by telephone.
Expanding its Military Career Transition Program, which already has produced more than 300 graduates with a placement rate exceeding 95 percent.
All of this adds up to a university that already has accomplished a remarkable amount of restructuring, and will be doing a lot more despite facing an extremely difficult $3.6 million reduction in its tax-supported budget for 1995-96. It is not by accident that many higher-education leaders regard Old Dominion as the prototype for ``The University of the 21st Century.'' MEMO: Dr. Koch is president of Old Dominion University.
by CNB