ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, June 19, 1996 TAG: 9606190027
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
AFTER THE fiscal buffeting of the late '80s and early '90s, how healthy are doctoral programs at the state's flagship universities, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia?
Not as robust as Virginians might like them to be, suggests information in an article by David S. Webster and Tad Skinnerby in the current issue of Change magazine, published by the American Association for Higher Education.
The authors, an associate professor and graduate student respectively at Oklahoma State University, derive their findings from an analysis of data from two large studies of research-doctorate programs in the United States - one published in 1982-83 by the Conference Board of Associated Research Councils, the other in 1995 by a committee of the National Research Council. Particularly sobering, if the analysis is to be credited: Between 1982 and 1995, Tech's ranking in "scholarly quality of program faculty" among major doctoral-granting institutions fell farther than the declines for all but seven other universities in the country.
In the 1995 survey, Tech's ranked a mediocre 60th among 104 universities with 15 or more rated doctoral programs. The national ratings by scholars and faculty members in the applicable disciplines rated UVa higher, at 28th, but that's not in the top quarter. (However, some specific UVa programs, especially in the arts and humanities, were deemed among the best in the nation.)
Money certainly is not the only consideration, but it might be a factor.
The biggest gainer in faculty quality ratings between 1982 and 1995 was Emory University in Atlanta, which in 1979 received $105 million in Coca Cola money and now has the sixth-largest university endowment ($2.2 billion) in the country. In North Carolina, where the state in recent years has been budget-friendlier to its universities, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill ranked 24th in the 1995 study, four places ahead of UVa. North Carolina State University, the land-grant institution there, ranked 46th, 14 places ahead of Tech.
Such ratings aren't infallible, of course, as Webster and Skinnerby observe in summarizing criticisms of the National Research Council's 1995 study. Neither, however, should they be discounted simply because the findings are discomfiting.
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