THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 11, 1996 TAG: 9605110294
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Out in the wide-open spaces where crops once grew and teens drag-raced their parents' cars, the future of higher education for the city and the region made a tentative bow Friday.
Virginia Beach officials, along with the presidents of Old Dominion and Norfolk State universities, outlined plans for what ODU President James V. Koch called a ``campus for the 21st century.''
Today it's just a sign, unveiled Friday off Rosemont Road next to Tidewater Community College. Two years from now, if the schedule holds, the Virginia Beach Higher Education Center, the joint project of ODU, NSU and the city, will open its doors.
It will replace the temporary center on Little Neck Road that now attracts 4,000 students a year. The new facility will have a capacity of 7,000 students - with many more to come as the center grows.
The joint campus is one of the nation's first to bring together once-predominantly white and black public universities. ODU and NSU will split the cost on a 70-30 basis, with ODU owning the land and having the larger share.
VBHEC, as the promotional flyer calls it, is a direct response to the needs of a city and the changing face of higher education. It expects to serve generally older, part-time, already-employed students.
``It's a very new way of doing business in higher education,'' Koch said in an interview.
The ODU/NSU center will begin to rise six to nine months from now on 35 acres donated by the city. It will open its doors in the fall of 1998 or spring of 1999, Koch said.
Koch said the campus will provide interactive courses to classrooms around the state, to businesses and even to individual homes. Students at remote sites will be able to ask and respond to questions, send in their homework, use the library and pay their bills electronically.
It will cut costs by sharing a library, parking space and cafeteria with TCC. ``It's going to give students more for less,'' Koch said.
Other state schools like the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech may eventually offer courses - or share them electronically.
The Higher Education Center will offer third- and fourth-year programs, as well as graduate courses. This will make it possible for two-year degree students from TCC to literally walk across the joint campus to finish their educations.
Virginia Beach officials, who have long sought a public, degree-granting institution, say it will fill a major need for prospective businesses looking for an educated workforce.
``This is obviously something we will tout to all businesses that are looking at the region as an opportunity for employees to further their education. It's a critical element for business,'' said Mark Wawner, the city's project development manager.
Comparing it to the new amphitheater and Lake Gaston pipeline, Wawner said, ``This is one of the most important things the city will do in the next several years.''
The first phase of the center will be a two-story, glass-domed building with 55 classrooms and laboratories, two 100-seat lecture halls and a ``virtual reality laboratory.'' All classrooms will be wired for voice, audio and video, as well as connections to the Internet, the world-wide computer information network.
The cost of the center, $14 million, will be covered by bonds guaranteed by the city and retired in full by tuition fees.
City and university officials gathered Friday in the middle of a grassy field off Rosemont Road. The one-time farmland, criss-crossed by straight, rural roads, was bought by the city as a future education and job center.
Virginia Beach put on the strategic plan by Virginia Beach in 1989.
``You're doing something no one else has been able to do,'' NSU president Harrison B. Wilson told Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf after the brief ceremony.
Looking out at the sprawling acreage, E. Dean Block, the city's director of management services, saw a big part of the city's future.
``Field of dreams,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Artist rendering
by CNB