THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 22, 1995 TAG: 9501250664
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 238 lines
The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia has protested the 20 percent cut in state aid to universities since 1990, saying it endangers the commonwealth's vaunted higher-education system.
Now the council itself faces a budget cut - and a loss of clout - greater than any that has hit the colleges.
Gov. George F. Allen has proposed slicing $1.4 million - or nearly half - of the agency's $3 million budget for the 1995-96 year. That would force the council to drop nearly one-third of its 48 positions, said Gordon Davies, its director for 17 years.
Davies - considered a trailblazer by some national educators and a traitor by some Virginia professors - says the cut would be a ``crippling blow'' to the council.
The move is seen as an effort to squeeze power from the council, which doesn't always toe the party line in Richmond, and transfer it to the governor. Last week, Beverly Sgro, the secretary of education, announced that Allen will also seek to cut the council out of the loop in budget decisions, requiring colleges to send their financial requests straight to the governor.
So what does it mean for students and colleges?
Advocates say it will allow the state to get tougher in areas such as holding down tuition and the proliferation of academic courses. Critics say it will hamper efforts at innovation, ranging from Old Dominion University's planned Career Advantage program - which has received a $100,000 grant from the council and guarantees every interested student an internship - to the statewide push for restructuring colleges to boost efficiency.
If the council is downsized, ``will a student notice it next fall? Probably not,'' said Mark Musick, president of the Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta.
But the student would notice in the next four or five years, he said, ``because there will be decisions that the legislature will make, the governor's office will make. Even when they don't do what the state council says, I would argue that they make better decisions because of this agency.''
The council plays a strange, independent role in state government.
Most agency heads are appointed by the governor. But Davies is appointed by the members of the council's board, who are themselves appointed by the governor to staggered four-year terms. Because the board has been loyal to Davies, he has weathered turnovers in administrations and the governing parties in Richmond.
On one hand, the council's powers are severely circumscribed in a system that gives Virginia's colleges wide latitude. It can't, for instance, order ODU to raise its SAT requirements for freshmen, or tell the University of Virginia to lower its tuition. The council, however, must approve all new college academic programs and can close any existing program. It also helps coordinate statewide planning for universities and develops budget recommendations for the governor and General Assembly.
The council, relying on the power of persuasion, can wield plenty of clout. Davies has been a thorn in the side of several governors and secretaries of education, most recently with his criticism of budget cuts. He has also leaned heavily on colleges to cut costs and increase their use of technology. Once resistant, the schools now seem to be complying in state-mandated restructuring plans.
Allen's budget proposal came just a week after the council got a positive review from the legislature's investigative arm, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.
The commission found that the council met 15 of its 16 goals, such as properly administering state financial aid programs and resolving student complaints. The only ``F'' it received was in monitoring programs with low enrollments. The panel's deputy director, Kirk Jonas, said it was one of the best-run agencies he'd seen in almost 20 years.
Yet the previous month, Allen's panel on government reform, known as the ``strike force,'' suggested that the council be winnowed to a ``specialized advisory study group'' for the governor. Saying that Davies was far too independent, the panel proposed moving several of the council's functions - such as overseeing aid programs - to Sgro's office and making Davies directly appointable by the governor.
Allen did not act on most of those recommendations, presumably because Davies' strong support in the legislature would have torpedoed them. But some observers say the deep budget cut to the council is a backhanded way to achieve the same results.
``It's hard to see this cut as anything less than the first step toward eliminating the state council and folding its functions into the secretary's office,'' said John McGlennon, a College of William and Mary government professor.
It won't be easy to win back the money during a legislative session in which politicians will be scrambling for plenty of other causes. In higher education, high-profile victims such as Virginia Tech, which could lose $12 million for its agriculture research and extension service, might muster more appeal than a faceless agency in Richmond.
But Sen. Elliot S. Schewel, D-Lynchburg, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he's going to fight for the council and for Davies: ``In my years of dealing with him, I just have the utmost faith in him. He is very honest and forthright, and he makes a wholehearted effort to carry out the perceived will of the General Assembly with regard to education reform.''
Allen's proposal has also irked national leaders in higher education, who see Davies as a major force for innovation.
``I think the governor is fooling with a person and a council that works,'' said Russell Edgerton, president of the American Association for Higher Education. ``As I look at state councils that are effective and have made an impact, Gordon leaps to mind as one of the most exemplary (directors). He is known in my circle as one of the real leaders across the country.''
Yet Walter Curt, a member of the strike force from Harrisonburg, says Allen ought to have cut even deeper into the council's budget.
``SCHEV, in my opinion, is not doing its job,'' said Curt. Instead of monitoring colleges, ``they are working pretty closely with universities to bolster any support they can get. Gordon Davies hangs out with college presidents, and he has become part of the old boys' network.''
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The arguments over the council - and Davies - boil down to a few educational and political points. They include:
Restructuring. Among local legislators and national educators, Davies' push for streamlining - now known as restructuring - has won wide praise.
As early as the spring of 1989, in a speech at ODU, Davies told professors they had to find ways to cut costs to prepare for the gloomy economic future. In a report three years later, the council urged universities to spend more time on teaching, and less on research, and to increase the use of technology. Faculty at big institutions like U.Va. and Tech branded it heresy and Davies a sellout.
But with the General Assembly's requirement last year that schools submit ``restructuring plans'' - and Allen's addition of financial penalties for schools with inadequate plans - universities say they are changing their ways. U.Va., for instance, vows its professors will spend more time with undergraduates, and less with graduate students; Norfolk State promises that nearly all professors will get computer training in the next few years.
Schewel said the council has accomplished what was once unthinkable - ``to get the universities and their big important professors, many of whom are prima donnas, to change the entire educational culture.''
The plans will help save Virginia taxpayers millions of dollars, and will also serve as a blueprint for the rest of the country, said James Mingle, executive director of the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association in Denver, Colo. ``The response wouldn't have been there without Gordon's leadership,'' he said.
But McGlennon, the W&M professor, complained that the restructuring movement reflects the council's ``effort in recent years to micro-manage institutions, telling them what direction they ought to be going in terms of research and enrollment.''
And Curt questions whether, despite the spotlight on restructuring, the council is really intent on keeping costs down. He cited Radford University's College of Global Studies, which had been set to open this year. It was approved by the council but Radford dropped it after Allen proposed stopping its $2 million-a-year funding.
Advocacy for colleges. Some professors and administrators say the council hasn't fought hard enough for universities during the lean years. ``From my understanding, they were supposed to be an advocacy agency for higher education, but I think their leadership is very interested in pushing them into the regulatory mode,'' said a local university official. ``Instead of advocating for colleges, they're trying to regulate everything we do.''
McGlennon agreed: ``A lot of faculty would agree that SCHEV is not aggressive enough in defending what universities ought to do and explaining to the public and the policymakers the benefits of higher education.''
The local official also complained that small schools in particular get slighted by Davies. Davies - who has a bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree from Yale - is most at home at the U.Va.'s and William and Marys and has curried favor at big name schools to build a base of support, the official said. Davies, he said, didn't speak out too strongly when Allen proposed cutting aid to six smaller schools, including NSU and Christopher Newport, whose restructuring plans didn't win initial approval.
Mingle says it's a typical complaint leveled at directors of state higher education councils. Anyway, he said, ``you go to U.Va. or George Mason, and they'll tell you he hasn't been a tough enough advocate for them, which makes me believe he's doing a good job.''
Davies says he has argued strenuously against the series of budget cuts, which have sunk Virginia to 43rd in the nation in per-student funding. Yet he acknowledged: ``My regret and failure is that we have not successfully convinced the people of Virginia and their elected representatives that higher education is absolutely critical to the quality of life in Virginia.''
But Davies said he hasn't mistreated the smaller colleges. Some of the schools facing restructuring penalties waited until the last minute to assemble their plans, often without faculty involvement, he said.
Power. Who should run most aspects of higher education in Virginia - the governor, through the education secretary, or the state council?
Though the governor holds the purse strings, the strike-force report complained that the secretary of education generally plays second fiddle to Davies when it comes to colleges: ``The secretary influences them only by persuasion and the implication of gubernatorial support. . . . Many regard the director of the council as having too much autonomy, too much . . . authority independent of the executive branch and too much influence on the legislature.''
For Curt and other critics of higher education in Virginia, giving the education secretary more power could solve problems such as course duplication across the state.
But Mingle worries that Allen's move is part of a nationwide trend for governors to grab more control over colleges. State councils are needed, he said, to give colleges a nonpartisan advocate: ``Sometimes, they're going to carry the message (to legislators that) raising tuition and cutting access are not acceptable. So let's figure out how to do it better and cheaper,'' Mingle said.
In addition, said Robert Ake, ODU's Faculty Senate chairman, education secretaries tend to be more interested in public schools than colleges. ``I would hate to lose that body that speaks in a singular, clear tone for higher education.''
Assessment. Across the country, the public and politicians are pressing colleges for more statistics and information on how well they are educating students. How is Virginia doing?
It's one of the leaders in the country, according to Edgerton, the head of the American Association for Higher Education. It's spewing worthless data, according to Curt.
Virginia colleges have to submit assessment reports to the council every year. But the reports can be whatever colleges want to study. They have included everything from general-knowledge tests to estimates of the number of times great novels are borrowed from the library.
``They don't use them for anything,'' Curt said. ``Parents can't call up the council and ask: `I want to know the best place to send my son for English.' ''
The report from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission said the assessment reports, in fact, had made a difference: W&M beefed up its general-education requirement, and Longwood College its freshman math class, as a result of the findings. But the commission, too, said the reports should have more ``user-friendly information'' and urged the council to publish ``a common set of institutional performance statistics.''
Davies said the council is already working on a dozen indicators, such as graduation and job-placement rates, which he had hoped to begin releasing this year. But if the budget cut is approved, he said, the council won't have enough people or time for the project, and it will probably be dropped. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dr. Gordon K. Davies, director of the State Council of Higher
Education for Virginia, has protested the administration's cut in
state aid to universities. Now, his department faces a cut and loss
of clout greater than any that has hit the colleges.
Graphic
ABOUT DAVIES...
Title: Director of the State Council of Higher Education for
Virginia since 1977
Age: 56
Education:
Bachelor's degree, English, Yale University, 1959
Master's degree, religion, Yale University, 1963
Doctoral degree, religion, Yale University, 1967
by CNB