Thursday, October 18, 2001

Higher-Education Council Backs a New Virtual University for Virginia By DAN CARNEVALE Virginia's State Council of Higher Education on Tuesday endorsed the creation of a distance-learning institution that would let students accumulate college credit by taking online courses from colleges all over the state. The proposed institution, to be called Virginia Virtual University, would not offer any courses of its own. Instead, students taking distance courses from any of the other state institutions could use them toward a degree from the virtual university. That approach would keep the new university's costs relatively low, said Carl N. Kelly, chairman of the council, and would mean that it would not compete with any other Virginia institution that offers distance education. "We have a pretty strong infrastructure in several of the schools already," he said. "It allows them to continue with their programs and for us to piggyback off of it." The council said the new institution would cost the state $375,000 to start. After that, it would be expected to be self-supporting. The council will ask the legislature for that amount and an additional sum, up to $250,000, to plan the virtual university. Its proposed opening date is now set for July 2003, a year later than was originally proposed. The additional time will allow the council to build a consensus for the proposal and answer questions that concern Virginia educators, Mr. Kelly said. Some of the questions include: Who would hire a Virginia Virtual University graduate? And will the cost really stay that low? "We've got some valid criticisms," he said. "We don't want this thing to fail, but we don't want to study it forever, either." Ken Plum, a Democratic member of the House of Delegates who sits on the Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Higher Education, said the higher-education council would have to prove that Virginia needs a virtual university. "There's a great deal of distance education already in Virginia," he said. The state legislature has supported technology in higher education, Mr. Plum said. But with a tight budget, he said, he and other members of the Appropriations Committee would have to look at the proposal closely. "If this is a smoke-and-mirrors way to deal with the increased enrollment projections on the cheap, I don't think the legislature will be interested," Mr. Plum said. "If it's a way to provide further educational opportunities, then we'll be more likely to support it." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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