THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601190701
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
LENGTH: Long : 157 lines
Old Dominion Univerity's president, James V. Koch, just got back from a three-month sabbatical. He says it's given him ``renewed energy'' to handle a heavy agenda this semester.
He's going to lobby the General Assembly for more money for faculty salaries and for approval to buy land for the university's proposed commercial development on Hampton Boulevard. He's going to finish revising ODU's core requirements, which may add on a computer literacy requirement. And he's going to help ODU launch a $45 million fund drive.
Quite a change from his three-month stay in Australia, where he taught economics at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), worked on a book on how to run colleges and caught up on some reading.
In Australia, Koch picked up some ideas he might try here - pushing to recruit more international students, giving departments and colleges more independence. But he also saw some things he didn't mind leaving behind: Australian students barely talk in class.
Koch recently discussed the semester ahead and his just-completed leave with staff writer Phil Walzer.
Now that you're back at ODU, what do you see as your top priorities this semester?
Immediately it's the General Assembly, and our top priority there is faculty salaries. We're bleeding right now in terms of the loss of faculty. I'll also be spending a good deal of time on Virginia Beach, and the proposed center there, and also on our east side development. On campus, one of the issues I'll spend a good deal of time on will be the change in our general education program. A little bit farther down the track, we anticipate having a capital campaign. I'm spending a lot of time visiting with people and asking them to support the university.
Tell me where the plans for the development of the east side of Hampton Boulevard stand. What do you intend to have there, and what will be done in the next six months?
We will be going to the General Assembly and asking for permission to buy land, and that's an important step. I think it's non-controversial. We're not asking for any (state) funds to do so. The first major part of the development will be a commercial shopping center between 38th and 43rd (Streets). The second step will be a convocation center, which will be at 43rd Street. That's all, of course, in our master plan, and we've done a lot of things with the city, and so I wouldn't anticipate problems there.
How soon will that all be coming up?
Even if we receive permission to acquire land beginning in April, I would think we'd be two years off from having land completely acquired and maybe a year after that to complete building. So at the earliest, we're at 1999.
Where will the funds come from?
For the convocation center, we have a steady fee stream we've been collecting for some time (from students). For the business development, the funds will come primarily from the developer and from businesses that would like to be located there.
Let's move to another project. What is the university's general education program, and how will that change?
General education is the equivalent of core requirements, and this is really where we attempt to liberally and broadly educate all of our students. It's a vital part of our curriculum. I'm pleased with our general education program now, but I think it's a matter of: Can we make some improvements in it to better serve our students? As an example, I'm a strong proponent of some kind of computer science requirement. I also think we ought to make it easier for a student not to have to take courses if they've already taken them before or they've acquired the knowledge.
You also mentioned the capital campaign. How important is that for ODU, and what are you hoping to finance?
I think it's very important for us because we haven't done it before. I hate to sound like an ad in the newspaper, but we need the money. And second, it's a way for us to put ourselves on the radar screens of important people in Hampton Roads and say, ``Look at the kinds of things we're doing.'' What we will devote the dollars to will be primarily faculty chairs, scholarships and small amounts of bricks and mortar. We're simply trying to do the kind of things that will interest and attract better faculty and students.
What's your target number, and when do you hope to officially kick it off?
I think the official kickoff will be in the fall, and I think it will probably be in the $45 to $50 million dollar range.
What did you do while you were on sabbatical?
I taught managerial economics and finished a book. I did a lot of reading and then did a lot of circulating at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the University of Melbourne.
What was the most important thing you learned while you were away?
I regained my contact with being a professor, and I think that's very important for a college president. We tend to get out of contact with the classroom. I think it was also important after being a college president for 10 years to go out and see how someone else is doing things.
Do you intend to make any changes at ODU based on what you saw overseas?
Yes, I do, and I'd like to mention one specific area. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology has about 40,000 students, and 7- or 8,000 are international students. In fact, the entire country of Australia, as a national policy, has decided to recruit international students, primarily from the Pacific Rim. They do that as a very important way to bring smart people to their shores to capitalize on that kind of connection and to utilize it later on for international trade and cultural exchanges. In the commonwealth of Virginia, much the same thing applies. If we can attract to Virginia higher education some of the smartest people in other countries, even when they return (home), those are people we can tap into and use.
So your goal is to attract more international students?
Yes, and I might add that in Australia, nearly all of them are paying their own way. They're paying a very considerable out-of-country tuition; sometimes it's as high as 25,000 a year. The university would probably find that it's making a profit on the students.
Any other things you'll bring over?
Well, I think I learned a great deal about their mode of management, which is certainly different. It's much more distributed, in the sense that in the typical Australian university, each of the individual colleges and schools is almost a ship that operates on its own bottom. And I think that as Old Dominion University matures, that brings up a lot of interesting possibilities for allowing individual departments and schools more freedom.
What are the things Australia is doing better in higher education, and where do we come out ahead?
They probably are superior to the United States in terms of this whole notion of decentralization. They've given whole campuses rather more freedom to go out and shape their own destiny. They're also superior in terms of having eliminated duplication - from approximately 75 four-year institutions to between 35 and 40. As a consequence, I think the institutions that remain are a bit stronger. I think there are some lessons for the United States and Virginia.
Did you see any differences between the students there and those at ODU?
Australian higher education at the four-year level is more selective than that at the United States. They have national examinations, and to be admitted to RMIT is a task, a real task. Also, most Australian students are not inclined to engage in a lot of classroom discussion. In my World War II course (at ODU), I throw out a question, and people sort of leap on it and need to talk about it immediately. In Australia, they're more reluctant. So if I wanted to get a discussion there, I would have to address a particular student and say, ``Mr. Walzer, what about such and such?''
I'd like to ask you a little bit about the book.
``The Presidency'' is co-authored by James Fisher, who's the former president for the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education and a former college president. Basically, this is an attempt to say to current and prospective presidents: These are some rules of the road, some things to do and some things not to do.
Can you list a couple of them?
We, for example, have a chapter on dealing with legislators. We have a chapter on dealing with the media. We state some obvious things like: Don't lie. Be straightforward. Answer telephone calls. We also talk about the rising importance of radio talk shows. Clearly, there's some risk going on a radio talk show cause you could be ambushed. But they're also a way to reach a lot of people. In my own case, sometimes I give advice in the book and I look at myself and I realize that I don't do that myself. But it's always easier to recite the 10 Commandments than to keep them.
One last thing: How come you shaved off your beard while you were gone?
I had the beard for 23 years and I decided that when I moved to Australia, no one there knew what I looked like. So why didn't I shave it off and see what I looked like? My wife and children said that they rather liked it. So I decided to leave it off for a while. It doesn't have any profound meaning. But in a sense, when you shave off your beard, it involves a new start. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
by CNB