by Gordon C. Morse
I learned earlier today of the death of Gordon K. Davies, the former head of the State Council for Higher Education. He was ousted from that post almost 30 years ago, and Virginia was the less for it.
Occasionally, the commonwealth attracts brilliance to its service, and Gordon was brilliant enough to get on people’s nerves. As the familiar line goes, he did not suffer fools gladly—though in Gordon’s case, he wasn’t going to suffer them silently, either.
The old-guard Democrats—the ones still holding onto power in the late 1990s—would have protected Davies, not because he was especially lovable, but because he delivered the goods. He knew his stuff. He understood that Virginia’s system of higher education—in its history, ideals, and defining characteristics—really amounted to no system at all. It was mostly an idea. Davies understood why that idea required protection, partly because he knew how many times it had come under assault.
The attempts to centralize and homogenize Virginia higher education—to build a superboard in Richmond, with a “chancellor” on a throne—were routine and resolute from the 1920s forward. Formal legislative commissions were formed, consultants were hired, recommendations were hauled before the General Assembly repeatedly, all with one essential goal: efficiency.
Efficiency had carried the day in many other states and, based on Virginia’s parsimonious inclinations, it’s a wonder that centralization never got done. Virginia adopted that model for its community college system, but every time an opportunity arose to put Richmond in command of the state’s 15 colleges and universities, the powers responded with a single word: No.
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