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II. OBJECTIVES AND STRUCTURE OF THE PLAN

The Plan for Equal Opportunity in Virginia's Institutions of Higher Education Is a logical extension of the Commonwealths continuing program of affirmative actions. Virginia has undertaken a continuous program for equal opportunity. This program has been characterized by actions such as the issuance and implementation of Executive Order No. 29, the Virginia Plan for Equal Employment Opportunity, the appointment of black members to boards of visitors of the State's colleges and universities and to the State Council of Higher Education, significant increases in minority student enrollments, development and refinement of university-wide affirmative action plans, and, most recently, the designation of the State Council of Higher Education to serve in a statewide equal opportunity coordinating capacity. This plan draws extensively upon the previously established and on-going programs of the State's individual institutions while making provisions for the establishment of new institutional programs. In addition, this plan brings further statewide coordination to the individual institutional plans.

While the plan consists of specific action statements, these statements contribute to achieving a series of overall objectives. These objectives are broadly stated here, but means for achieving them ore detailed throughout the plan.

A. Objectives

• 1. The plan is intended to make Virginia's institutions of higher education accessible to all citizens of the Commonwealth who wish to study at them. Student choice of institutions should be determined by academic program offerings, institutional location, type of extra-curricular activities other similar criteria. The racial composition of institutional student bodies and Faculties should not be a Criterion of choice.

• 2. The plan is intended to increase the number of minority group persons in faculty and administrative positions within Virginia's institutions of higher education. Planning at the institutional level will focus on attracting minority group persons and on developing their skills and evaluating them for retention and promotion.

• 3. The plan is intended to coordinate the academic development of the institutions so that the distribution of programs is the best possible for equal opportunity in higher education. The Council of Higher Education will bear primary responsibility for fulfilling this objective as it conducts its reviews of proposals for new academic programs and of academic program productivity.

• 4. The plan includes provisions for monitoring and evaluation, both on the institutional level and the statewide level. These provisions will ensure that the plan remains flexible and can be changed as opportunities for improve- ment arise.

• 5. The plan is intended to encourage specific programs of cooperation among institutions, including joint academic programs, exchanges of faculty and students, the development of credit transfer agreements and the design of non-traditional academic degree programs.

B. Structure

Because of the statutory responsibilities of Virginia's institutional governing boards and the statewide coordinating board, the actions required to achieve the objectives of the plan will be both of an instructional nature and of a statewide nature. Therefore, it is logical to present the action phase of the plan in two major sections. The first will describe the institutional actions for which the individual institutional governing boards have ultimate responsibility. The second major section will describe the role of the statewide coordinating board, the State Council of Higher Education, stating the actions for which it will have direct responsibility and those for which it will serve in a coordinating role. Each section will address the same major areas: students; faculty and staff; academic programs; cooperative programs; and monitoring and evaluation.