THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 8, 1995 TAG: 9505080042
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Long : 137 lines
It's going to be the last waltz for some students at the College of William and Mary.
The last sip of Gewurztraminer wine.
The last game of bridge.
Next month, the college will close its continuing education program, which offers a smorgasbord of noncredit courses from ballroom dancing to Cajun cooking, beginning German to wine tasting.
Administrators say they plan to revive it in a different form. But that won't be for at least a year and will almost surely focus on academic classes.
The demise of continuing education at William and Mary is another chapter, with a new twist, in the continuing saga of college restructuring in Virginia.
Like other university officials, William and Mary administrators say they have to sharpen their focus and eliminate extraneous offerings. This time, the ones who are upset are not traditional students or faculty, but residents of the community, who have been taking the continuing education courses for years.
``Everything seems to be going to the younger generation, which is fine and dandy, but there are a lot of older folks, and we pay taxes, too,'' said April Kornegay of Newport News, during a break on the last day of ballroom dancing.
The school, many say, needlessly has created a rift in what had been a good town-gown relationship. ``Now we feel the college is the big high priest, the guru on top of the mountain, and we can't compete,'' said Tony Malara, a Williamsburg resident who has been a veteran course-taker.
Some wonder whether restructuring and belt-tightening is just an excuse for William and Mary - the second-oldest college in the nation (Harvard is the oldest); drawing card for speakers like Prince Charles, George Bush and Margaret Thatcher - to drop what it deems too plebeian and lowbrow.
``I think it's not lofty enough for the college,'' said Pete Kubin, another ballroom dancer.
But Provost Gillian Cell said the move was part of a collegewide review of offerings.
``We made some hard decisions across the board, including some main-line academic programs,'' she said. William and Mary also is dropping a half-dozen master's programs, in subjects such as math and government.
Most continuing-ed programs are self-supporting. Continuing Education Director Colleen Whitacre says William and Mary's is running a $44,000 profit this fiscal year, but Samuel Jones, vice president for planning and budget, said it lost $17,000 last year. That, however, was not a major consideration in closing it, Cell said.
``In every part of the college,'' Cell said, ``we really asked ourselves: Is there some reason we can do this better than anyone else? In the case of special programs, in a number of instances we had some problems. It's not clear to us why it was appropriate for the College of William and Mary to be offering, just to give an example, a course in auto repair.''
Those kinds of courses, she said, were ``not consonant with our mission'' of providing a top-notch undergraduate liberal arts education and graduate programs.
Patricia Sempowich, a student from Hampton in the Cajun cooking class, said the school has lost sight of another part of its mission: ``A college exists to serve the community, and the community is more than the students on campus.''
Cell said, however, that the closing is ``not intended to be a signal that we are retreating from service and outreach. We think we do have an obligation to serve the community, and I think we are serving it in a variety of ways'' - such as the School of Education's work with public schools and the college's recently opened center in Newport News that offers master's degrees in business.
Some noncredit classes will return, Cell said. Whitacre will be let go next month. But Cell said the school will hire an associate provost who will review the curriculum next year.
She said William and Mary is negotiating for Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton to take over some courses, but would probably resume offerings on the academic side, such as computer and foreign languages classes.
Trouble is, that's not what some adults are looking for.
Dr. John Prahinski, an orthopedist at Fort Eustis, said: ``I didn't want to get my M.B.A. in my free time; I wanted to do something fun.'' So he's in Cajun cooking.
``Learning about the world - about music, food - is just as much a part of life as learning calculus,'' he said. ``The mission of a university should be to expand the horizon of the mind, and the palate is just as much a part of the human spirit.''
Then he went back to sampling the blackened fish his instructor had made.
William and Mary's continuing-ed program began in 1976, said Whitacre, who declined to comment on the closing. Annually, it offers about 120 classes to 4,000 people, at an average fee of $50 each, she said. Most of the classes are taught by area residents with expertise.
In addition, the program sends speakers to civic groups and companies for sessions on such topics as AIDS, total quality management and Colonial history.
Malara, the owner of a Williamsburg beauty shop, has sampled the range.
He's taken ``How to Supervise People,'' with good results at the store (``They're getting along better with me; they're more productive''). He's taken Chinese cooking and can make Mongolian beef. He's taken sculpture, fulfilling a lifelong artistic dream.
``I always wondered if I could sculpt and paint,'' he said, ``but I was always afraid to give it a try. This gave me a boost.'' And he's still sculpting.
Most local colleges have continuing education programs, and some are expanding. Last fall, Tidewater Community College hired Judy Payton to beef up its offerings. She said TCC offers a couple hundred courses and is planning to add dozens more this year - from line dancing to SAT prep courses, Bicycling 101 to a tour of Petersburg.
Old Dominion University had a total enrollment last fall of 23,000 in continuing education, director Edith Barnett said. ``We are alive and doing very well, and the administration is very supportive of what we are doing.''
Barnett said the program fulfills ODU's mission of providing ``lifelong learning,'' but she didn't want to discuss William and Mary's case. ``We're an urban institution. . . . I don't feel I can comment on William and Mary, which has a different mission and location.''
The students range from older people to young professionals. But college-age students are there, too.
In ballroom dancing two weeks ago, 22-year-old senior Steve Young was valiantly trying to learn to swing as teacher Patricia Swan offered instructions: ``Side-together-side, side-together-side, rock-step.'' But his feet couldn't quite get it, so, as the older couples practiced, he took his girlfriend to Swan for advice.
``It's helped me grow,'' Young, an English and accounting major from Columbus, Ohio, said later, ``and get a more liberal education, which the college should want students to have.''
The course is over, but he hasn't given up the swing. At a formal dance last week, he tried again. ``It's a little tricky there.'' But he's getting it. ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by ROBIE RAY/
Henry Nebel and Elizabeth Woodard learn to jitterbug at the College
of William Mary. The school wants to dance to another tune and is
closing its continuing education program.
by CNB