Associate News Editor
The Higher Education Act moving through the Virginia Legislature would bring more autonomy to public institutions, but Virginia is not the first state to take a step toward greater freedom for their public schools.
While Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary originally coined the term ?Chartered University Initiative? to describe their goal of more decision-making responsibility, colleges across the country are using different terminology to describe their status of autonomy.
?We use the classification of ?state related,? ? said Tysen Kendig, university spokesman for Pennsylvania State University. ?Along with University of (Pittsburgh), Temple and Lincoln University, we have far less responsibility to the state for our actions within the university.?
Kendig said Pennsylvania has had its program in effect for decades, dating back to the 1950s, but some schools have experienced more recent advancements in their status of state independence.
St. Mary?s College in Maryland achieved chartered status in 1992, becoming the first college in America with the ?chartered? title.
?We are still a public college, but we have our own Board of Trustees for decision making,? said Marc Apter, director of public relations for St. Mary?s.
Apter said St. Mary?s makes its own rules regarding faculty, hiring, salaries and tuition increases, which are some of the freedoms Tech will acquire if the act is passed.
Morgan State University is another higher education institution in Maryland with a similar status to that of St. Mary?s. Ray Vollmer, assistant vice president for finance and management at Morgan State, said the freedom they have allows the school to make cases directly to the state, whereas all other institutions, besides St. Mary?s, have to go through another system before being able to ask the state for approval.
Apter and Vollmer both said the advantages of being separate from the other state schools gives them a lot more independence to make decisions.
?The advantage to our structure is it allows the college to be quicker on its feet when it comes to new courses for example. It?s there to benefit our students,? Apter said.
While the independence benefits St. Mary?s, state funding did decrease because of the chartered status, Apter said.
?Twenty-nine percent of our budget comes from state funds,? he said. ?In good times we would know we would get a certain amount, but in bad times maybe not as much.?
Morgan State also receives 29 percent of their operating budget from the state, Vollmer said. While 29 percent is minimal to many public institutions in America, the charted status at St. Mary?s allows for vastly more funding than Penn State, which receives 10 percent of its operating budget from the state. Tech?s percentage of operating budget under the Higher Education Act is yet to be determined.
Like St. Mary?s and Morgan State, the University of Florida, along with Florida?s other public institutions recently received more freedom from the state.
?A few years ago, there was a Florida constitutional amendment which instills a Board of Governors,? said Joe Glover, interim provost for the University of Florida. ?The Board of Governors then vested more responsibility in the board of Trustees for the universities.?
While Florida schools do have some freedoms for funding decisions, their university status is somewhat different than the act in Virginia. Under the Higher Education Act, Virginia schools will have full freedom to make decisions as long as it is ultimately approved, while Florida schools have a limited amount of increased responsibility.