Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 29, 1995 TAG: 9510310033
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Quick now: What have six years and $46 million in budget cuts meant to students attending Virginia Tech?
"I cannot get a practice room in the music department, and the pianos are always out of tune," says Megan Weinstein, a Fairfax sophomore.
Art major George Bailey Jr., who hopes to become a graphic designer, pored over the job offerings in The Washington Post last Sunday. What experience did employers seek? Knowledge of Quark, a leading desktop design software. Tech's art department does not teach that program. Bailey is learning how to use it on his own.
"Unfortunately," he said, "some of the things that are being taught are quite obsolete."
For her part, Roanoke geology major Channon Jones was feeling self-satisfied one breezy day last week. She had just managed to beat back the system, emerging victorious from her own particular budget-cut-related battle.
"My major lost its field camp," she said. That meant financial aid from Tech to cover the $2,000 expense was gone, and students were left to take the required offerings elsewhere. Jones had just managed to get her department to come up with an alternative field studies program for her next semester.
"I put my foot down," she said. "I can't afford it."
Look for Virginia voters like these on Nov. 7, when those students who've registered to vote will go to the polls with budget-cut war stories on their minds. Look also for the 7,300 or so state employees - faculty and staff alike - who work at Radford University and Virginia Tech. They've watched colleagues take buyouts and bail out, tired of the money drain.
Students and university workers comprise "a fairly substantial constituency in some districts," University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato said, referring to communities with universities in their midst. In Western Virginia, that means the New River Valley-based districts where Del. Jim Shuler, D-Blacksburg, is being challenged by Republican Larry Linkous and state Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville, faces Republican Pat Cupp.
Consider whether you agree with a group of prominent business people who've called for a $200 million infusion into higher education. They think the economic benefit to the state is worth it. Better education equals spinoff companies - maybe even of the variety found in North Carolina's Research Triangle.
Since the recession of 1990, higher education has been cut by $400 million in Virginia. Oft-quoted is a new statistic born of those cuts: The state is now 42nd in per-student spending - just ahead of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. And North Carolina? North Carolina is No.7. When it comes to setting aside tax money for college students, Virginia banks $3,389 per student; North Carolina, $5,456.
Democrats appear to have captured the education issue, political analysts agree. On a September bus tour, the party's candidates stumped for a plan to boost all the state's educational systems, from kindergarten through graduate school.
Republicans, on the other hand, see the higher education system as one that needs to be as accountable to voters as any other state agency. Gov. George Allen capped tuition increases to the rate of inflation, leaving it to the universities to find the money that higher tuition would have brought in. He also tied university budget awards last year to state approval of their restructuring plans, the ongoing process of cutting or merging small programs, eliminating jobs, and finding other ways to cut costs.
Last week, the Virginia Higher Education/Business Council, the group in search of $200 million, asked candidates to support its agenda. The move may have muddied party lines because plenty of Republican candidates in the Roanoke region and the New River Valley signed on alongside the region's Democrats. The only Republicans who did not are House challenger Trixie Averill of Roanoke County, Senate candidate Steve Newman of Lynchburg, and two unopposed incumbents, Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo of Fincastle and Del. Tommy Baker of Pulaski County.
The truth is, higher education funding is not at its recession-era low, according to state appropriation figures. Department of Planning and Budget Director Bob Lauterberg said tax revenues last year raised funding $21 million and $61 million the year before. As he and his fellow Republicans point out, that reverses the recession-era trends under Democratic Gov. Douglas Wilder.
But funding is still lower than it was in 1989. And student enrollment has increased.
Students interviewed last week allowed that they didn't yet know who to vote for and weren't sure which party would improve their colleges. But the students are keenly aware of the effect the budget cuts have had: They're concerned about the quality of their education, and whether they'll be trained for actual jobs.
Take, for instance, the huge lecture halls at Virginia Tech where first- and second-year students take introductory courses.
"Teachers are tired and starting to get burned out," Weinstein, the sophomore from Fairfax, said. "Personally, I think it would be difficult to be motivated teaching, with 600 people, with people talking, coming in late, leaving early..."
Faculty members have been increasingly vocal with their frustrations.
"It's really been tough," said Bob Denton, the Virginia Tech communications professor and political analyst. "It's a real morale kind of issue."
The frustrations came to a head last year. Not only did the governor propose cuts that went to the heart of one of Tech's major arms, Virginia Cooperative Extension, but he put in place a whole slew of directives for state employees.
There's the state hiring freeze. Administrators must justify new hires to Richmond to fill jobs. And travel has been cut so only a limited number of professors can attend conferences, Denton said. That reflects a misunderstanding of "the job of academe," where professors have to keep up professionally. Also, he said, the wait to fill positions interrupts the flow of the school year.
"To lump us in as state employees as you would the highway department or clerks in Richmond just shows a lack of understanding of the hiring cycle and the budget cycle. I find it ironic, when the governor keeps talking about local decision-making. Well, let the institution decide how to fill a position.
"Isn't it ironic - the provost has to sign every travel authorization. Surely to goodness a person in that position has something better to do than sign" authorizations, he said.
It's an open secret that morale is poor. Alongside the university's rank and file, the number of professors leaping at buyout offers reflects their dissatisfaction with Allen and his pledge to cut the work force.
Last spring at Radford University, 59 people left. At Tech, 300 faculty took a separate buyout. Radford also has reopened the state's Workforce Transition Act buyout to faculty; with a late November deadline, 11 have applied to leave.
In a televised debate earlier this month, Richard Cranwell, the House Majority Leader from Vinton, and Averill, his Republican challenger, laid out positions that exemplify the partisan point of view on higher education.
The recession-era cuts were necessary to avoid increasing taxes, Cranwell said.
"Now that we're through the recession, we're making money, it made no sense, this last session, for a governor who pledged in his campaign he would not cut higher education to propose $40 million worth of cuts to the budgets of the colleges," he said. "We need to go back and reinvest in our colleges."
"The fact is," Averill replied, "The governor did not cut education. What he did was, he cut the increase."
In other words, he cut increases in the second year of a two-year budget, which had been approved the previous year, as Cranwell pointed out.
"There were some cuts to higher education programs, but they were not ones that were absolute priorities and did not interfere with the academics," Averill said.
Voters who live in a district that's home to a university will see that the party lines are less well-defined. That was clear to anyone who attended an Oct. 3 forum hosted by a formidable group -Tech's Faculty Senate.
Larry Linkous, the Republican who is challenging Del. Jim Shuler, D-Blacksburg - who is himself a Tech graduate - pointed out that the Linkous family farm was a Tech research farm for 40 years. His son, Linkous said, is a student at Radford University. As a member of Montgomery County's Board of Supervisors, Linkous said, he's developed a record of "independence and leadership."
On the same side of the political aisle sits Pat Cupp, the Republican who is challenging long-time state Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville.
Said Cupp, a Tech graduate: "I'm not George Allen." And, "Virginia Tech's the greatest product we have."
It's the same way up in Charlottesville, Sabato said. After all, survival is the first rule of politics.
"If a university gets a cold, the whole district catches pneumonia," he said.
Both Linkous and Cupp signed the business council pledge.
Allen's priorities are education, public safety and jobs creation, said Lauterberg, the director of the state Department of Planning and Budget.
"We're going to do everything we can in this next budget to make sure education is a priority, including higher ed. We're shifting resources in the budget" to education, law enforcement, and economic development, he said.
Richard Rich, head of Tech's political science department, offers this assessment.
"No candidate for state office from this area could afford to come across not supporting higher education," he said, by way of assessing Republican candidates' claims to independence. "It's too central to economic development, and too central to the interests of a lot of individual voters here.
"The question would become, 'What role would the individual play in a coalition in Richmond?' Because legislation is not made by any single individual. Obviously, when they go to Richmond, they're going to come under considerable pressure to vote the party line.
"Even if they do remain true to their promises here, will they be outvoted by their fellow Democrats or Republicans in the legislature?"
Rich extended a reminder:
"Education has been a major issue in this campaign because we've reached a tipping point in Virginia; a critical point.
"This is not an issue because somebody...thought they could make political points."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB