University of Virginia Library

Holton Urges Cooperation Among Schools

This is the first time in the
history of the Commonwealth that
the governing boards of our public
colleges and universities have
assembled in concert to plan for the
future higher education needs of
our state.

I am neither an educator nor an
economist. But I would like to cite
some economic facts about higher
education in Virginia in recent
years.

In the decade between 1960 and
1970-71, all appropriations for
higher education in Virginia
increased by 356 per cent. The
general fund appropriations for all
state- supported institutions of
higher learning increased by 49 per
cent in the 1968-70 biennium over
the 1966-68 biennium, and by 45
per cent in the current biennium,
that is 1970-72, over the last one.

If you consider that in terms of
total general fund dollars
appropriated in each of the last
three biennial budgets, the
respective percentages are 13.6 per
cent for 1966-68, 15.2 per cent in
1968-70 and 16 per cent for 1970-72.
The point being that not only are
the absolute dollar appropriation
going up but also your share of the
Virginia general fund also has been
increasing.

Continued Commitment

So even though our support
may still be below the national
average, I think no one can doubt
the sincerity of the
Commonwealth's commitment to
higher education, and I pledge that
that commitment will continue.

Now considering the demands
on state government right now, you
can well imagine that this
administration is interested in any
savings of any kind.

As you know, the most
expensive programs to establish and
operate in higher education are the
graduate programs. While there was
a need at one time for more such
programs in Virginia. I wonder how
much more need there still is today.

I say this because the most rapid
growth in Virginia's higher
education over the past six years
has been in the very expensive
graduate programs.

Figures Cited

For example, according to the
1971 Fact Book on Higher
Education, just published by the
American Council on Higher
Education, the rate of growth of
graduate education in Virginia
between 1964 and 1969-5 years -
was 190 per cent, I repeat, 190 per
cent.

Nationally this growth was 59
per cent and in the southeastern
states this growth was 80 per cent.

Not only are these programs
costly; some substantial people

question whether many of them are
worthwhile. All of us know that
there are some fields a number of
Ph.D.'s that constitute a glut on the
job market today.

Graduate Programs

So I would respectfully suggest
that before our individual
institutions star proposing new
graduate programs that they look
to see what already exists elsewhere
in the state or in the South, or
elsewhere in the nation. We can go
into regional development with
states north of us or west of us as
well as south of us.

Actually, I think and I believe
you will agree that our basic higher
educational need in Virginia is not
more individual graduate programs
but on the contrary, it's a need to
provide more accessibility for
higher education at the
undergraduate level, particularly for
students of lower income families.

HEW Report

I submitted a report to the
Department of Health, Education
and Welfare last December, in
which I noted that the number of
Virginians going to college from
families with annual incomes of
$10,000 or more was at or above
the national level.

But the number of young
Virginians attending college from
families with annual incomes of less
than $10,000 was well below not
only the national average, but our
southern regional norms as well.

Not only do we need to make
our higher education facilities
available to more young Virginians
of low income families; we also
need to give many of them
additional training that will enable
them to meet the standards set by
institutions of higher learning. We
are going to keep those standards
and keep them high.

Inaugurate Programs

But I would hope that your
institutions will inaugurate, or
expand, programs designed to
insure that students from
disadvantaged families and lower
income groups are adequately
prepared for higher education.

Another higher educational
need in Virginia is simply that of
better allocation of academic
classroom space...there have been
instances in which classrooms at
state supported institutions have
been used for only 3 hours a week.
This is documented.

Certainly, we can make a better
utilization of classroom space than
we have at the present. People
don't understand- I don't
understand-how you can walk
through the campus or the grounds
of some of our institutions of
higher education and see classrooms
that simply don't have any people
in them.

Perhaps by re-structuring the
college calender, by extending the
class day, by letting the History
Department, for example, use some
of the classroom space in the
English Department when it is
vacant, perhaps we could
accommodate additional student
growth with less demand for new or
additional facilities.

We know the great financial
demands and we know we must
touch every source as well as get all
that we can out of each dollar that
we spend.

Apply Resources

Yet, if the needs of your
institutions are your prime concern,
as well as they must be, I trust they
will not be your sole concern. This
type of conference enables you to
take a look at statewide needs, at
statewide resources and help you, I
hope, to find out how these
resources can most effectively be
applied to meet the needs of
all.....from early childhood
education right on to and through
the finished product.

Our mission, then, in Virginia,
in higher education in the 1970's, is
not to compete with one another
but to cooperate; not separatism or
separate progress of a given
institution but unity (in order to)
achieve an over-all common goal
which is not mediocrity but
excellence for all of Virginia's
young people.