Showing posts with label Scott Hurst. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scott Hurst. Show all posts
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Bayless bowing out as WVU-Tech provost June 30
This article originially appeared in the May 29 edition of The Charleston Gazette, and is reprinted with permission.
By Veronica Nett, Staff writer
After three years at the helm of West Virginia University Institute of Technology, Charles Bayless will retire next month to pursue research in energy and coal at WVU.
Bayless announced Tuesday he will retire as campus provost June 30.
He said he plans to work on a volunteer basis in WVU's National Research Center for Coal and Energy - a field he said he is truly interested in and is excited about working in.
He said he plans to work on a volunteer basis in WVU's National Research Center for Coal and Energy - a field he said he is truly interested in and is excited about working in.
"I'm probably more useful there than I am here," he said.
Bayless was appointed as president of WVU-Tech in 2005. His title changed to campus provost when the school became a division of WVU in July 2007 (the school had been a regional campus of WVU since 1996).
A Kanawha County native, Bayless earned an electrical engineering degree from Tech in 1968 and both a master's degree in engineering and a law degree from WVU.
Bayless may be best remembered for his attempt to move WVU-Tech's engineering program to the Dow Technology Park in South Charleston. Gov. Joe Manchin announced the plan in his 2006 State of the State address, but public outcry from some faculty, students and Montgomery-area residents scuttled the proposal.
"It's about time," Gail Harlan, a member of the group Take Back Tech, said of Bayless' resignation. "We're just tickled to death that they got rid of him."
Bayless acknowledged there is no love lost between him and some Montgomery community members. "They have hardly begun to forgive me for trying to move Tech to Charleston," he said.
Still, he said his decision did not stem from pressure from the Montgomery community. He said he came to WVU-Tech with the attitude that he would "stay until I can fix it."
"I believe that I've accomplished what I came here to do," he said. "In the past three years, we've been able to provide our students with a state-of-the art engineering laboratory and new residence hall and dining facilities that were desperately needed. We've increased state funding by $1.8 million a year, and our application numbers for next fall are very strong."
Bayless credited Take Back Tech as an instrumental force behind WVU-Tech securing $3.2 million in funds from the Legislature for upgrades to the school's engineering program.
"I do appreciate what they have done," he said.
Associate provost Scott Hurst, who will serve as interim provost, said enrollment at WVU-Tech has stabilized, but the institution is still losing There's about a $1 million deficit," he said.
Since 2002, WVU-Tech has seen a 20.8 percent drop in enrollment, according to a report by the state Higher Education Policy Commission.
About half of that is from the loss of community college students, Hurst said. A 2000 law said community and technical colleges must be independent of four-year colleges. WVU-Tech's community college was accredited in 2004.
The Legislature is also conducting an audit of WVU-Tech's finances.
In June, Take Back Tech filed a lawsuit alleging WVU had failed to live up to its statutory obligation to produce a specific plan for WVU-Tech. Kanawha Circuit Judge Irene C. Berger agreed in January and gave WVU officials until May 1 to come up with a plan.
WVU-Tech officials, however, have yet to submit a master plan to the WVU Board of Governors for approval. Hurst hopes to have one together by the end of July.
Harlan said Take Back Tech members have met repeatedly with Hurst and back his appointment as interim provost.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Tech loses $1.2 million in 2007, similar losses expect in '08
This article originally appeared in the April 28 edition of The Charleston Daily Mail, and is reprinted with permission.
by Kelly Halloran, staff writer
West Virginia University Institute of Technology had a $1.2 million deficit last fiscal year, and school officials estimate they'll have a similar budget shortfall this year.
Last year marked the first time the university dipped into the red, after several years of declining enrollment and falling revenue.
The college had had a surplus at least for the previous two years. In 2005, the budget had $1.3 million left over, and in 2006 the surplus amounted to $233,000.
But according to financial statements recently made available on the Higher Education Policy Commission Web site, revenue in 2007 fell $1.2 million short of expenditures.
The deficit is due to declining enrollment and an insufficient accounting structure at the school, Associate Provost Scott Hurst said.
Total enrollment dropped to 1,450 in the fall of 2007, down from 1,474 at the same time in 2006 and 1,539 in the fall of 2005.
Enrollment has been steadily declining since 1992, when it peaked at 2,163 students.
In 2006, worries about falling enrollment and facility problems on the Montgomery campus spurred lawmakers to propose moving the institute's engineering school to a technology park in South Charleston. Backlash from eastern Kanawha County andschool alumni nixed the move, and the state pumped millions into renovations and overhauled the administrative set-up of the entire college.
It's now a division of West Virginia University, which shifts much of the financial and recruitment responsibilities to the Morgantown aministration.
A lingering problem that led to this year's deficit is that Tech had not had a good system of tracking expenses, Hurst said.
"One of the problems we have had when we started to address the problem was getting an accounting structure in place," he said.
The school is attempting to turn things around, Hurst said.
In July, for example, school officials began to look more closely at controlling expenditures, he said.
"We need to not have excess capacity in areas where we do not need it," Hurst said. "I'm talking about non-academic services."
Administrative functions, such as human resources and financial aid, have been moved to Morgantown.
Rather than establishing supervisory roles at the school, officials at the two schools also have agreed to centralize the roles at WVU, Hurst said in an earlier article.
The move will save about $700,000 in the coming year, he said.
The school primarily receives its revenue from tuition and fees, Hurst said.
Only one-third of the school's funding comes from state appropriations.
In a court-ordered plan the school released in February, officials focused on ways to recruit and retain students.
The plan calls for enrollment to increase by about 12 percent to 1,650 by 2012.
One way to do that is to offer more scholarships, Hurst said.
"There are things that we have to do on our campus and services that we have to get in place," he said.
School officials expect to run a deficit in fiscal year 2008 similar to this year's, Hurst said.
They hope to be back in the black in a few years with the help of the changes they are making to the school.
"If you invest in the appropriate things and run a deficit in the process of doing that, sometimes it will turn the fiscal situation around," he said.
The state is conducting an audit on the school this year, but officials are not sure when that will be complete, legislative auditor Aaron Allred said last week.
by Kelly Halloran, staff writer
West Virginia University Institute of Technology had a $1.2 million deficit last fiscal year, and school officials estimate they'll have a similar budget shortfall this year.
Last year marked the first time the university dipped into the red, after several years of declining enrollment and falling revenue.
The college had had a surplus at least for the previous two years. In 2005, the budget had $1.3 million left over, and in 2006 the surplus amounted to $233,000.
But according to financial statements recently made available on the Higher Education Policy Commission Web site, revenue in 2007 fell $1.2 million short of expenditures.
The deficit is due to declining enrollment and an insufficient accounting structure at the school, Associate Provost Scott Hurst said.
Total enrollment dropped to 1,450 in the fall of 2007, down from 1,474 at the same time in 2006 and 1,539 in the fall of 2005.
Enrollment has been steadily declining since 1992, when it peaked at 2,163 students.
In 2006, worries about falling enrollment and facility problems on the Montgomery campus spurred lawmakers to propose moving the institute's engineering school to a technology park in South Charleston. Backlash from eastern Kanawha County andschool alumni nixed the move, and the state pumped millions into renovations and overhauled the administrative set-up of the entire college.
It's now a division of West Virginia University, which shifts much of the financial and recruitment responsibilities to the Morgantown aministration.
A lingering problem that led to this year's deficit is that Tech had not had a good system of tracking expenses, Hurst said.
"One of the problems we have had when we started to address the problem was getting an accounting structure in place," he said.
The school is attempting to turn things around, Hurst said.
In July, for example, school officials began to look more closely at controlling expenditures, he said.
"We need to not have excess capacity in areas where we do not need it," Hurst said. "I'm talking about non-academic services."
Administrative functions, such as human resources and financial aid, have been moved to Morgantown.
Rather than establishing supervisory roles at the school, officials at the two schools also have agreed to centralize the roles at WVU, Hurst said in an earlier article.
The move will save about $700,000 in the coming year, he said.
The school primarily receives its revenue from tuition and fees, Hurst said.
Only one-third of the school's funding comes from state appropriations.
In a court-ordered plan the school released in February, officials focused on ways to recruit and retain students.
The plan calls for enrollment to increase by about 12 percent to 1,650 by 2012.
One way to do that is to offer more scholarships, Hurst said.
"There are things that we have to do on our campus and services that we have to get in place," he said.
School officials expect to run a deficit in fiscal year 2008 similar to this year's, Hurst said.
They hope to be back in the black in a few years with the help of the changes they are making to the school.
"If you invest in the appropriate things and run a deficit in the process of doing that, sometimes it will turn the fiscal situation around," he said.
The state is conducting an audit on the school this year, but officials are not sure when that will be complete, legislative auditor Aaron Allred said last week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)