StateWide
Compiled by Lynn Burke
W&M President Puts Up Own Money for Living Wage
William and Mary President Timothy Sullivan said he would
contribute one percent of his salary over the next six months to help pay
training and transportation costs for minimum wage employees at the college,
reported the Feb. 8 Richmond Times-Dispatch. Sullivan asked the entire
faculty and staff to do the same to help solve the college's low living wage
problem.
According to the article, Sullivan said the money would not
go directly to workers but be used to "cover some immediate financial
needs ... while the college studies ways to increase nonfaculty wages." He
also said that better training programs are needed so that workers qualify for
better paying positions.
The article reported that wages for low-paid workers are set
on a statewide basis, but some schools have been able to increase wages. The
University of Virginia, for example, uses private donations to raise its
minimum wage to $8 an hour.
The newspaper later reported that living wage activists at
the school urged that the money be donated to a campus-based labor rights
organization so that workers could determine how the funds are used.
SCHEV Honors Outstanding Virginia Faculty
The State Council of Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV) in
February presented the 15th annual Outstanding Faculty Awards to 11 faculty
members of Virginia private and public colleges and universities. The $5,000
award recognizes faculty for demonstrated excellence in teaching, research, and
public service. This year's awardees are Dwight W. Allen and Sushil K.
Chaturvedi, Old Dominion University; Dafna Elyon and Michael Allen Wolf,
University of Richmond; Purusottam Jena and David J. Urban, Virginia
Commonwealth University; Charles R. Johnson and John A. Musick, the College of
William and Mary; Robert Martin Screen, Hampton University; James P. Wightman,
Virginia Tech; and Kelly G. Lambert, Randolph-Macon College.
VCU Focuses on Need for Grants
Federal research funds at Virginia Commonwealth University
(VCU) "have gone flat," reported the Richmond Times-Dispatch in
February, and the school is pressuring its faculty to increase the number of
research grants they receive to return the school to its place in the top 75
research universities in the United States.
VCU is currently ranked 104th, according to the article.
Most of the school's research support comes from federal grants, and that
funding has stayed between $45 million and $50 million since 1990. VCU also was hurt
when the federal government suspended new enrollments in clinical trials
because of the school's problems in overseeing current projects, reports the
paper. The university's goals for the next five years are reported to include
increasing funds the school receives from research grants by about 10 percent
and tripling the amount of money received from licensing new inventions and
intellectual properties and university start-up companies.
UVA Takes New Look at Fraternities
After almost 20 years of a hands-off approach, the
University of Virginia is moving toward a closer relationship with its
fraternity system, reports Inside UVA, the school's newspaper for staff and
faculty. A report prepared by the Fraternity Working Group recommended that
cooperation among fraternities, alumni, and the university be increased and
investments be made to renovate fraternity houses, hire more staff to work with
fraternities, and provide leadership training for fraternity members. The
article reported that for its part the Inter-Fraternity Council would improve
self-governance structures, increase accountability, and name the university as
co-insured on its liability policies.
Radford Celebrates Goldberg Donation
Radford University held a reception to honor the late
Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and the donation of his personal library
to the school by his son. The reception was attended by Supreme Court Justice
Stephen Beyer and former U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.).
Goldberg left the court in 1965 to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
and was a distinguished visiting professor at Radford from 1987 to 1989.
Goldberg passed away in 1990. His library includes works on foreign policy,
international relations, the labor movement, social issues, and the arts.
Governor Awards $300,000 for Education Partnerships
Six public and private education partnerships from the
governor's Virginia Business-Education Partnership program recently each
received $50,000 for their innovative programs. The winners included Regent
University's School of Business for the Entrepreneurship for the Disabled
Virginia Internet Project, Thomas Nelson Community College for its Tech Trek
Counselor and Student Enrichment Program, and Wytheville Community College for
its Opening the Door of Technology Careers for Southwest Virginia's Future
Workforce project.
