Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 18, 1993 TAG: 9307190243
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
When Wayne Clough announced that he was leaving Virginia Tech for greener - if rainier - pastures in Seattle, there were moans among the congratulatory handshakes.
It wasn't just that Clough, a strong public speaker and dean of Tech's college of engineering for three years, was leaving.
He was the most recent in a series of high-ranking administrative officials who have announced retirements, returns to teaching or moves away from the Blacksburg campus.
In the past two years, Tech has lost more deans and vice presidents than any time in recent history, said Provost Fred Carlisle, whose calendar is filled with circles starting and ending searches to replace five prominent faculty members.
"I've jokingly referred to it as Interim U," said Jim Johnson, who retired as head of cooperative extension last year at 55. "It's filling up some now, but for a while, there were a lot of vacancies."
The vacated (and filled) positions have included two vice presidencies, a vice provost's spot and deanships at seven of Tech's nine established colleges. A dean also was hired for a 10th college, the new college of forestry, during the last academic year.
The reasons the administrators have left or shuffled positions at the university have varied, Carlisle said.
Johnson and James Nichols, dean of agriculture and life sciences, retired.
Two deans were near retirement age "and wanted to end their careers in somewhat of a less-stressed way as faculty members," Carlisle said. "The deans' jobs in the last several years have been very stressful."
With a budget shortfall that started back in 1990, colleges have had to slash budgets and programs. Deans have had to make do with less and make decisions that were less than popular.
But Johnson, who led extension during the harshest of the budget cuts, said he's not sure he would have stayed at Tech past retirement even if the university hadn't been going through such tough times.
"Every university has problems it has to deal with," Clough said. "I leave the university with a positive feeling."
In fact, Clough said, it looks good on your resume if you've dealt with budget problems - so many universities are facing them now.
It is not unusual for deans to step down as they near retirement, said Richard Sorensen, dean of the business school and one of two deans who took office before James McComas' presidency here.
"It's a last chance to write an article, a last chance for academic recognition," Sorensen said.
University officials say Tech is not experiencing the brain drain that comes when some economies slump and others boom.
For one thing, they say, no other states are really booming.
Those who do leave Tech are moving up.
Clough, for instance, took a $150,000 provost's position in Washington; Gary Hooper, former vice provost and dean of the graduate school, took a similar post at Brigham Young University in Utah.
To Leon Geyer, former president of the Faculty Senate, that's a natural progression, as is the exchange of a deanship for a faculty role. "A trend that's happening across the nation is that administrators are not necessarily becoming administrators for life," he said.
"Maybe [the turnover] is just the nature of being a university on the edge of the upper crust," Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said. "We have a lot of young risers in our programs."
One of those was Clough, who, during his three years as dean, worked with curriculum changes and gained community visibility by speaking about the smart highway, a proposed road that would link Blacksburg to Interstate 81 using the latest in highway technology.
"I believe that those who have a good understanding of the technology should talk about it for the public," Clough said. He had been approached by other universities in the past, but turned them down.
"I had a lot of admiration and respect for the faculty here, and I love the area," Clough said. "I was reluctant to seek a job. But I reached a time in my life where, if I was going to try [administration], I was just going to have to do it."
Sorensen said other schools often recruit deans for new positions.
"If you don't get at least one call a year, I suspect something's probably wrong with you," he said.
But what is atypical at Tech is the length of time some of these deans have stayed in office.
The average tenure of a business dean is 4.5 years, said Sorensen, who's in his 12th year at Tech.
His predecessor was at the university for 22 years, and Clough's predecessor, Paul Torgersen, was in office for more than 20.
Meanwhile, Andy Swiger has been acting dean for agriculture and life sciences since Nichols stepped down in December 1991.
A few more months in office and Swiger's interim deanship will have lasted as long as Clough's time as head of the college of engineering.
Five positions are still held by interim or acting staff members, though the people filling those slots are competent, Carlisle said.
Johnson, watching the university news as he does volunteer work in his retirement, is concerned.
"The university right now is losing people with really good experience - a lot of solid individuals in an awful lot of key positions. I hate to see that happen."
Sorensen worries that with all the searches being conducted simultaneously, the administrators involved in those searches are being prevented from doing other things.
"These things occur, but the grouping creates a problem," Sorensen said. "The quicker we get it behind us, the better off we'll be."
\ VIRGINIA TECH BRAIN DRAIN?\ \ Positions that have been refilled since Jan. 1, 1990:
Dean of the College of Education
Dean of the College of Human Resources
Vice Provost for Research and Dean of the Graduate School
Vice President for Development and University Relations
Vice President for Information Systems
\ Slots still filled by acting or interim personnel at Virginia Tech:
Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies
Dean of the College of Engineering
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
Director of Extension
\ New positions filled last academic year
Dean of the College of Forestry
Vice Provost for University Outreach and International Programs
by CNB