Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 6, 1990 TAG: 9004250024
SECTION: FOUNDER'S DAY '90 PAGE: VT2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
O'Neil has been president of the University of Virginia and George M. Kaufman Professor of Law since 1985. He is a member of the executive committee of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.
In the 118 years since the founding of the university, thousands of people have served Virginia Tech and the state. Virginia Tech's annual Founders Day celebration honors faculty, staff and students whose outstanding achievements deserve recognition.
"At a time when there has been increased debate on the role of higher education in society, it is appropriate to have a speaker of Robert M. O'Neil's stature present his views at this university," said Virginia Tech President James D. McComas. "As one of the leading land-grant institutions in the country, Virginia Tech will play a vital role in the direction and type of education Americans receive in the coming years."
O'Neil's tenure, and that of McComas, have been marked by increased cooperation between the two universities. Last summer UVa and Virginia Tech began an initiative to open a new college in Northern Virginia to provide educational opportunities for an expected rise in the number of state high school students. The new college also would offer continuing education courses to older and professional people in the area.
O'Neil will focus in his speech on the increased emphasis on the service missions of land-grant colleges and universities. That increased emphasis is evidenced by more outreach learning and continuing education programs, he said.
The next decade will see more use of technology in teaching. Technology holds much potential for education, but professors must be careful not to let these advances remove the human and personal element from the classroom, O'Neil said.
O'Neil, who will step down as president of UVa this summer to become the first director of the university's new Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, considers his emphasis on continuing education and statewide service to be one of the highlights of his administration.
"When I came here, I felt there was a very real danger that someone would move in and close down our continuing education centers, and we would thus lose these absolutely critical ties to the state," O'Neil has said. "One of the things that seemed important here was the university's statewide effort, not just continuing education, but also Clinch Valley (UVa's four-year branch in Wise), the Blandy Experimental Farm, the Roanoke medical program and the Long-Term Ecological Research Project on the Eastern Shore. These are just some of the statewide activities that I have tried to nurture and encourage in the belief they are educationally important but also politically significant as a way to keep this university in touch with the people of the commonwealth."
This spring O'Neil will become only the second university president to receive the Signature of Excellence Award from the National University Continuing Education Association.
From 1980-85 O'Neil was president of the University of Wisconsin system, a system of 13 universities, 13 two-year colleges and a comprehensive extension program.
Previously, O'Neil was senior vice president of Indiana University in charge of the Bloomington campus. He began his administrative career as provost and later executive vice president at the University of Cincinnati.
O'Neil taught law at the University of California-Berkeley from 1963 to 1972.
He graduated from Harvard in 1956 and Harvard Law School in 1961. After a year as research assistant to Professor Paul Freud on the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, he served from 1962-1963 as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr.
by CNB