1. Welcome and Announcements

   Ed Flippen, Commission Chairman, welcomed the attending members and briefly reviewed the work of the Commission. He reminded the group that over 115 presentations had been made and that they had heard from 15 college presidents, 47 other state officials, and a variety of other experts. Then, Mr. Flippen introduced Ms. Roxane Gilmore, the First Lady of Virginia.

2. Opening Remarks by Ms. Gilmore

   Ms. Gilmore spoke about the importance of holding college costs down and the importance of maintaining the integrity of the college degree itself.

   Ms. Gilmore said that colleges and universities needed to carefully balance the need for new buildings with the need to be more efficient; the need for more administrators with the need to hire more faculty, and the need to balance doing more research with the need to do more teaching.

   She suggested that the priorities of parents for higher education were to: (a) reward good teaching, (b) provide a solid core curriculum that would give students a well rounded experience, and (c) assess student learning in a meaningful way.

   In closing, she said that she and the governor were looking forward to receiving the Commission's final report in January and thanked Mr. Flippen for all of the good work done to date.

3. Report from the Cost Task Force

   Mr. Frank B. Atkinson led the Commission members in a discussion about the Institutional Performance Agreements (IPA) and other key recommendations related to funding, cost containment, and affordability.

   He announced that both Senator Chichester and Delegate Diamonstein are in support of the IPA concept.

   The Commission agreed as a body that IPAs should contain the following attributes:

   • They should reflect and be based upon clearly defined institutional missions and higher education policies established by the Commonwealth.

   • They should empower and equip institutions to plan and act in furtherance of their missions, subject to state policies.

     They should provide for adequate, stable, and predictable institutional funding to the greatest extent possible within the context of the Commonwealth's constitutionally mandated appropriations and legislative process.

   • They should provide for measurement and reporting of key indicators of institutional performance and educational quality for the benefit of education consumers and taxpayers.

   • They should provide incentives for institutions to achieve identified performance and quality objectives and consequences for deficient performance.

   • They should provide greater managerial and operational flexibility at the institutional level in exchange for increased outcome-oriented accountability.

   Commission members agreed that the agreements ought to run for 6-year terms, noting that future General Assemblies cannot be obligated to continue certain types of funding. Also the Commission agreed that all institutions should participate in the IPA process since each agreement is mission driven.

   In the discussion on affordability, the Commission agreed that financial aid funding priorities should remain: (1) funding need, (2) funding merit, and (3) funding targeted workforce need.

   The TAG Program continued to receive support. The Commission decided not to recommend any accountability measure for private institutions as part of this program.

   On the topic of accountability, a recommendation that the General Assembly clarify, through language in the 2000-2002 Appropriation Act or by statutory amendment, the status of local funds was stricken from the draft report.

   Ms. Phyllis Palmiero reviewed what will be called the, "Report of Institutional Effectiveness" as part of the IPA and general accountability for Virginia's system of higher education.

4. Report from the Quality Task Force

   Dr. Larry Sabato led the discussion on Commission recommendations with respect to quality.

   The Commission struck two recommendations from the draft report having to do with community colleges. Specifically, the recommendation to begin offering baccalaureate degrees at community colleges as a pilot program was removed from the draft report. In addition, a recommendation to automatically accept a Virginia community college graduate into the Virginia senior institution and major of his or her choice was removed.

   A recommendation requiring that at least one foreign language be included in the general education curriculum was also removed.

   With respect to faculty, a recommendation that each institution establish a two-tract tenure system where one tract would focus on teaching and the other track would focus on teaching, research, and service was also removed.

5. Report from the Governance Task Force

Ms. Elizabeth McClanahan reviewed the committee report on governance. The committee recommended that each board of visitor member be given a proposed document entitled, "Statement of Role and Responsibilities" upon appointment. The committee, among other items, also recommended that:

• SCHEV identify vehicles and opportunities for providing other information boards of visitors need to do their jobs.

• The General Assembly adopt a mandatory training requirement for first-year board members.

Several recommendations about changing the tone of the report were made.

6. Report from the Economic Development/Workforce Training/Research Task Force

Recommendations included:

• That the Secretary of Commerce and Trade, the Secretary of Education, and the Secretary of Technology should work together to ensure that a well-trained workforce is available.

• That SCHEV should examine the nature and extent of non-credit courses and programs offered by community colleges and senior institutions.

• That SCHEV and the Secretary of Commerce and Trade should identify degree and certificate needs of competitive businesses across the Commonwealth.

• That teacher education programs prepare graduates to achieve a 70% pass rate on the Praxis II exam.

• That the Governor and General Assembly should consider additional strategies to attract federal and private investment in research and development infrastructure at Virginia's colleges and universities.

• That SCHEV in cooperation with others examine the need for a single intellectual property policy for all institutions.
7. Concluding Comments and Administrative Matters

Mr. Flippen reminded everyone that the next draft of the final report would be mailed to each member in about a month. Commission members will have 10 days to respond to that final document. No other working meetings are anticipated. The final report will be delivered to the Governor during a luncheon on January 17, 2000.

Posted: November 29, 1999
By The Educational Policy Institute of Virginia Tech
sjanosik@vt.edu