Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 29, 1995 TAG: 9501300059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG LENGTH: Long
Academia and the real world met head-on last week, and the real world lost.
At least for a day.
The extraordinary faculty vote of no confidence in longtime James Madison University President Ronald Carrier boiled up from many trouble spots that had been simmering on campus the past few years - from Carrier's refusal to take questions at a faculty meeting to the appointment of his son to a high-ranking administrative position.
But at its core, the referendum can be read as a lesson on what happens when corporate-style ``downsizing'' hits a college campus.
``Higher education has always been somewhat insulated from the changes we've seen in the corporate world,'' says John Malbon, a Virginia Beach oil company president and a member of JMU's governing board.
No more.
The flash point for the faculty outburst against Carrier was his now-infamous Friday the 13th announcement that he was abolishing the physics major in a cost-cutting move to appease state officials who are pressuring Virginia colleges to ``restructure.''
Professors who rallied opposition to Carrier said they wanted to not just send a signal to the JMU administration - but also to budget-ax-wielding state leaders in Richmond.
``This is bringing to light what the taxpayers of Virginia are going to face if they want higher education to mean something,'' English Professor Robin McNallie said. ``They are going to have to face up to the fact that you have to spend money.''
The JMU professors sent a signal, all right - but not necessarily the one they intended.
Even before the ballots were cast, the five-member executive committee of JMU's board of visitors declared its support for Carrier and his restructuring plans.
``There are a lot of companies downsizing,'' Malbon said. ``If you polled the employees, they would likely have a different viewpoint about it.'' He said the JMU board is ``absolutely committed'' to the restructuring the state has mandated, and that faculty members should get used to it.
``Any time you change the culture of anything, it's a painful process,'' Malbon said.
That's the message Richmond received, too.
``If we had a referendum among the 140 legislators, it would be strong in Dr. Carrier's favor,'' said state Sen. Kevin Miller, R-Harrisonburg, a retired JMU accounting professor."There is a strong consensus here that we need to proceed with restructuring our colleges. With that public reaction from the faculty, primarily because of the restructuring initiatives - it's a backlash against the desires of the General Assembly and the administration."
He warned that fellow legislators had mumbled that the JMU professors were ``cutting their own throats.''
``We all desire the autonomy institutions have, but I think actions like this could be a threat to that autonomy,'' Miller said. ``The General Assembly has to vote for funding. We could be inclined in the direction of micro-managing some of these institutions [if the faculty opposes restructuring]. By financing, we can bring about the changes. We really could remove the money for a department or a school, as witness the Radford situation,'' where the governor has proposed to cut funding for that university's New College of Global Studies.
If anything, the faculty's vote only strengthens Carrier's hand with state legislators, says one Richmond political operative. ``I think it solidifies the respect that legislators have for Dr. Carrier,'' said Gail Nardi, a former Carrier aide who works for the state Democratic Party.
Faculty opponents contend the real issue isn't so much restructuring as it is the ``secrecy'' with which it was conceived and the way faculty was cut out of the decision-making.
Even Carrier's supporters agree that he may have been too heavy-handed in ramming through the latest changes. ``He's not enough concerned with his image among the faculty,'' Miller said.
But Carrier has always been regarded on campus as a dictator - ``a benevolent dictator,'' McNallie said, but a dictator nonetheless. During most of Carrier's 24-year tenure, the faculty jovially referred to their leader as ``Uncle Ron.'' The difference now, McNallie said, is there's ``suddenly a dismantling'' of JMU's academic programs ``and a heading off into unpredictable directions.''
In other words, restructuring.
Ever since state officials first sent word to Virginia colleges in the late 1980s to reorganize their programs to begin doing more with less, Carrier has been regarded as a leader in restructuring. ``In fact, he's the model,'' said state Sen. Elliot Schewel, D-Lynchburg, chairman of the Senate Education Committee.
JMU's faculty isn't sure that's such a good thing. Administrators have started paying more attention to which courses and departments are attracting students - and which aren't. Carrier's top assistant has spoken of holding professors accountable ``for what they teach and how they teach.'' State officials have begun referring to students as ``customers'' and calling on professors to increase their ``efficiency'' and ``productivity,'' words that may please business leaders but which rankle academics.
The result: ``A large number of faculty are feeling under siege,'' political science Professor Bob Roberts said.
A year ago, the JMU faculty was upset enough to hold its first referendum - that one calling for a moratorium on restructuring. ``All we hear about is cutting the teaching side,'' complained physics Professor Dorn Peterson, who as speaker of the Faculty Senate has led opposition to Carrier. ``You never see anything about the administrative bloat.''
(Late last week, Peterson stepped down as speaker, saying he didn't want his opposition to be seen as a personal vendetta - it's his department that's being eliminated.)
At the same time, there's an undercurrent of campus discontent with the new College of Integrated Science and Technology - the rough equivalent of Radford's departed global studies venture.
Carrier has touted the new college as a way to take math and science to a larger group of students who need a technological background, but who aren't inclined to major in the traditional hard sciences. Campus critics have panned it as ``dumbed-down science,'' ``vocational education'' and a ``gimmick'' that's draining funding from the rest of the school.
In protest, one group of students recently erected on the campus lawn a model of a bronzed bovine - labeled ``Carrier's golden calf: CISAT.'' But the board of visitors and state officials have embraced Carrier's new college. ``It's cutting edge and he's been recognized nationally for what he's trying to do with that college,'' Malbon said.
In a larger sense, what's really being fought at JMU is a battle over the nature of a state-supported liberal arts university in the 1990s and beyond.
The administration says it costs too much to hire 10 physics professors when their department produces only about six graduates each year. The school still will offer physics classes; it just won't offer a major in the subject.
Critics contend there's only one other college JMU's size that doesn't offer a physics major - Ferris State in Michigan. One English professor bemoans: ``We're following Ferris State down the road to educational greatness.''
To which the administration and its supporters in Richmond respond, in effect: Don't worry. Others will follow. They'll have to.
``The fact is, the taxpayers of Virginia are not willing to support 27 temples of science with public money'' to provide a physics major at each of its state-supported schools, Nardi said.
Colleges must specialize more - and JMU's specialty isn't turning out physics majors.
But such specialization in ``popular'' courses runs counter to the liberal arts tradition. ``Who generated this new model, someone who knows about a liberal arts university or some political hack?'' Peterson said. ``We'd lose so much if all our schools were big technical training schools.''
JMU's campus traditionally is a hotbed of political passivity. The biggest ``happening'' students can remember came a few years back when there was a farcical movement to change the school's mascot to a three-eyed pig with antlers.
Now, said senior history major Colin Rushing, ``I've never seen the campus this charged in the four years I've been here.''
Some students are wearing black armbands. A caricature of Carrier with a Hitler-like mustache adorns a wall in a physics workroom. Beside it, someone has scribbled ``The JMU Fight Song: Don't know much about history/don't know much about geography/never opened a physics book ...''
During the three-eyed pig campaign, some 200 students assembled on the campus lawn to perform a mock wedding ceremony with bananas. Last week, up to 400 demonstrated there against Carrier's restructuring.
And that's just the beginning, Peterson vows. Carrier's critics are gearing up a letter-writing campaign aimed at the board of visitors, which meets March 15.
``That's when it all comes to a head,'' Peterson said. ``It doesn't die between now and then.''
Even after the board meeting, the underlying issues won't go away. Carrier himself reflected on them in the wake of the faculty vote of no confidence: ``I don't see the faculty vote as a vote against what I have done at the university but as a vote that represents longing for a time past where the external challenges to higher education were nonexistent ... and campus government was conducted over coffee and confined to the ivy walls.
``We now have other partners in higher education and it is uncomfortable for all of us.''
by CNB