Bacon's Rebellion

  • Huge Swings in Student Populations Among Virginia’s 4-year Public Colleges and Universities Have Consequences

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    sherlockj

    University of Mary Washington

    by James C. Sherlock

    I have previously in this series on Virginia’s public institutions of higher learning (IHE’s) used the term “cannibalization” to describe some getting bigger and some getting smaller, a few much smaller, in terms of student populations.

    I will here provide the numbers to back that up.

    While the total undergraduates dropped 1.5% (minus 2,572) in the system between the fall of 2018 and the fall of 2022, the increase in graduate students (plus 3,604) made up for it and the total campus population changed 0.4%.

    Basically flat.

    But those system numbers mask huge swings in student populations, both undergraduate and total, among the 15 schools. The data compiled in that spreadsheet are sourced from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV).

    The trends have enormous consequences for Virginia’s 4-year colleges and universities, both those that are growing and those that are shrinking.

    The same trends have easily predicted consequences for Virginia students if not reversed. (more…)

  • Leftist Media Canonizes Another Killer

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    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Ronald Albert Barnes.

    That was the name of the Southampton County Correctional Center guard who died in March of 1975 after being beaten and stomped by two inmates, including convicted rapist Tony Lewis.

    If you read Sunday’s Virginian-Pilot, maybe you were moved by the front-page valentine to “Tony The Tiger,” as he was affectionately known by his family, who are trying to get him out of prison after 50 years behind bars.

    The story – “A Pursuit Of Freedom Blocked At Every Step” – is what journalists used to call a “Sunday thumb sucker,” a long-form piece dedicated to a heartwarming topic.

    Perhaps you, too, read yesterday’s drivel about how this poor guy from Hampton – grew up fatherless in the projects, blah, blah, blah – and has been incarcerated since he was 16. His first conviction was for a 1973 rape (absolutely zero details on THAT crime) and later for his part in the murder of the prison guard, an escape attempt and other crimes associated with a deadly prison riot.

    Inches and inches of ink about a killer. Yet the newspaper couldn’t be bothered to print the name of the man he murdered.

    Color me unsurprised.

    Let’s be honest, giving the dead man an identity might turn Tony the Tiger into Tony the Ruthless Killer and dilute the sympathy The Pilot is trying to gin up for the inmate. (more…)

  • The Rats Return

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    James A. Bacon

    VMI Rats

    by James A. Bacon

    Good news from the Virginia Military Institute! After seeing a drastic falloff t0 374 entering students last year, 491 students matriculated this fall. Last year’s decline capped off years of disastrous public relations stemming from a campaign by The Washington Post and the Northam administration to depict VMI as a racist, sexist institution. The Post has since redirected its venom to conservative VMI alumni, taking the heat off the institution, and Northam is history.

    Last year, according to VMI officials, the administration ramped up its recruitment efforts, focusing on geographic areas with larger populations of military families and low-income or minority students. About 85.5% of this year’s cadets are men, and 14.5% are women. Interestingly, VMI did not provide a breakdown by race/ethnicity, even though achieving racial diversity has been a top priority.

    Meanwhile, controversy continues to roil the military school. As Bacon’s Rebellion noted two weeks ago, Board of Visitors Chairman Thomas R. Watjen had asked VMI’s University Counsel, who reports to Attorney General Jason Miyares, to investigate allegations that VMI officials had sought negative press about The Cadet, the independent student newspaper that has been a thorn in the side of Superintendent Cedric Wins and his administration. But now, reports Cardinal News, Watjen says VMI “will handle the matter internally.” (more…)

  • The Real Deal

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Who do you think provides the more authentic insight into the mindset of the American working class: elite media, which filters its portraits of blue-collar Americans through the cultural and ideological lenses of its Ivy League reporters, or a home-grown balladeer like Farmville resident Oliver Anthony?

    Anthony (real name Christopher Anthony Lunsford) became an overnight musical sensation with his YouTube song, “Rich Men North of Richmond.” He is the real deal, singing raw country music unaffected by the wokeness that has infected the new generation of Nashville superstars. His “lived experience” clearly informed the lyrics to the song.

    “People in the music industry give me blank stares when I brush off 8 million dollar offers,” he wrote in a recent Facebook post reacting to his sudden fame. “I don’t want 6 tour buses, 15 tractor trailers and a jet. I don’t want to play stadium shows, I don’t want to be in the spotlight.” (more…)

  • Virginia’s State Higher Education System – A Concept for Magnet Schools among the Smaller Ones

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    sherlockj

    Radford University

    by James C. Sherlock

    Yesterday I posted an article listing a series of challenges facing Virginia’s Institutions of Higher Learning.

    Today I will offer a concept for a solution designed to address both the cost of a 4-year degree and the thriving of the smaller schools.

    Create a magnet school program in the smaller schools:

    • for majors that are increasing in popularity; and
    • to meet Virginia’s critical workforce needs.

    To reduce costs for the schools and students, the magnet schools would focus on attracting third- and fourth-year undergraduates to a limited number of magnet majors as transfers from the community college system.

    They inevitably would get some third-year transfers from the larger schools for strong majors, but that is not the focus.

    The Community College system already has its guaranteed entry program, with courses specified by and tailored for specific institutions.

    To strengthen specific departments, the schools would need to spend money.

    I recommend developing a state fund administered by SCHEV, access to which would require firm plans not only to strengthen specific departments, but also to cut costs elsewhere.

    The largest schools would not be permitted to apply, with a potential exception of a program for undergraduate nursing and education student stipends.

    (more…)

  • Dominion Plan to Maintain Gas Attacked at SCC

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    Steve Haner

    Percentage of Virginians reporting difficulty in paying for electricity, including those setting their thermostats to uncomfortable levels. From expert testimony filed by the University of Michigan’s Justin Schott, based on census data. Click for larger view.

    By Steve Haner

    First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.

    The front line in the war against fossil fuels in Virginia has now shifted back to the State Corporation Commission, and as usual only one side has fielded an army and brought heavy weapons to the battlefield.  Those who might defend the continued use of coal and natural gas are missing in action.   (more…)

  • Correction

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    In two recent stories about administrative bloat and faculty bloat at the University of Virginia, I published inaccurate information. I stated that annualized full-time-equivalent student enrollment between fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2022 increased 1.1%. The correct figure was 8.8%. The result of the error was to exaggerate the degree to which the increase in salaried staff and teaching faculty outpaced the increase in student enrollment.

    However, the larger point of the articles stands: the increase in staff and faculty exceeded that of enrollment by a wide margin. The headcount of salaried staff increased 25.4% over the same period and the headcount of tenure-track faculty, instructors, and lecturers increased 25.7%.

  • The Value of an Old School Roanoke County Education

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    Bob Rayner

    by Scott Dreyer

    These remarks were shared with the Roanoke County School Board by email on August 17, 2023.

    I share these thoughts with the Roanoke County School board as someone who grew up in the County from ages 1 to 18 and attended County Public Schools from grades 1-12 until graduating from Northside.

    I am profoundly thankful for the education I received over those twelve years. The content shared here is not meant to sound boastful; it’s not about me. The intention is to give honor and gratitude for the fine educational foundation the Roanoke County Schools gave me, and to share this with the community so we can appreciate what we have and build on it, and not let it be neglected or destroyed.

    The education and leadership opportunities I received in County Schools, (in tandem with lessons learned at home, in Scouts, at church, in the community, etc.) gave me the tools to enjoy a rewarding and successful life and career.

    And my experience is not unique. I am the youngest of four; all of us graduated from County schools and then attended and graduated from William and Mary. Clearly, Roanoke County gave us tools in our toolkit to take our studies and lives to the next level. (more…)

  • Virginia State Colleges and Universities Slouching Towards a Cliff

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    sherlockj

    University of Mary Washington

    by James C. Sherlock

    The economist Herb Stein once said that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

    The University of West Virginia has just stopped to take stock.

    Facing a $45 million shortfall, it had to cut programs. Instead of taking the unthinking way out — assigning a cut target to each department — it restructured.

    The university shut down nearly 10% of its majors entirely. The axe fell most directly on the humanities. The Athletic Department was told it was on its own for funding.

    President Gee did not want a bailout, figuring it was time to bite the bullet. He and his board decided to emphasize the programs in demand and let go those which could not attract enough students to justify their costs.

    Virginia’s portfolio of institutions of higher learning (IHEs) faces challenges, some unprecedented, from at least a half dozen different sources.

    Eventually, sooner rather than later, we will have to deal with them as a state. Virginia’s state “Plan” for its IHEs is not helpful.

    This issue needs detail for discussion, and I will provide some here. (more…)

  • Cruise Subsidy More Important Than Tax Relief?

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    Steve Haner

    What is this cruise ship doing in a story about Virginia’s budget and tax fight? Read and learn.

    The Richmond Times-Dispatch has obtained and released the most recent negotiating offer from Democrats in the Senate as the standoff between the two political parties over the state budget continues.  It is contained in an on-line article that doesn’t appear to have made it into the print edition yet. (more…)

  • Virginia’s New “The Stupid Party”

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    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Chris Braunlich

    From the ‘50s to the mid-‘70s, the Republican Party was known as “the stupid party” – locked in the past, making foolish decisions, promoting unwise and counterproductive policies.

    Today, in Virginia, “the stupid party” has returned. But it is no longer Republican.

    The current battle over Virginia’s budget and the prospects for tax reduction and reform affirms the Left’s governing philosophy: what the government has belongs to the government and what the taxpayer has is negotiable.

    With a $5.1 billion surplus exceeding the last fiscal year’s projections, Governor Glenn Youngkin proposes to return $1 billion — less than 20 percent — to the taxpayers from whom it came, in the form of permanent rate reform. He would spend the remainder on education, behavioral health, law enforcement and other projects. Senate Democrats, on the other hand, want to spend all of it, offering, at best, a one-time rebate giving them “first dibs” on future excessive tax revenue. (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

  • Faculty Bloat at UVa

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Data source: office of Institutional Research & Analytics
    by James A. Bacon

    A key cost driver at the University of Virginia is the increasing size and declining teaching productivity of its faculty. The topic appears to be taboo.

    The Board of Visitors hasn’t discussed it, and there is no indication from publicly available sources that the university administration has engaged in any introspection. The slender evidence available to the UVa community is found on the website of UVa’s office of Institutional Research & Analytics (IR&A), a 17-person office deep within the bowels of the university. While that office does publish limited data online, it has not released any reports of an analytical nature.

    Employee salaries, wages and benefits comprise roughly half of the university’s cost structure. While a 25.4% surge in salaried staff accounts for much of the growth in UV’s cost structure between fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2022 (see our article, “Hard Numbers on Administrative Bloat“), a 9.5% increase in “faculty” was a significant contributor as well. If we count teaching faculty only (tenure-track professors, lecturers and instructors) and exclude departmental-level administrators, whose numbers have been slashed, the “faculty” headcount bounded ahead by 25.7%.

    By contrast, annualized FTE enrollment rose 8.8%. (more…)

  • Loudoun Supervisors Defend Exorbitant Junkets

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Ram Venkatachalam

    Until recently, members of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors haven’t tried to sell themselves as international diplomats and business development experts. They aren’t.

    Nor do we have a long history of waste, fraud, and abuse when it comes to how members of local government spend our tax dollars, especially for money budgeted for constituent services.

    But now four Democrat members of the Board have been caught red-handed in the biggest local government scandal in decades. This is what Entitlement looks like.

    This year alone, Chair Phyliss Randall, and Supervisors Juli Briskman, Sylvia Glass, and Koran Saines have violated their oath of office by diverting nearly $100,000 in taxpayer money (that we know of) for first-class travel for themselves and others to Ghana and Uruguay. They even purchased a pricey camera to take pictures of themselves because it wasn’t enough to use their taxpayer-paid cell phones.

    That money could have been spent to hire another elementary school teacher, firefighter, or deputy sheriff this year. Instead, it was wasted.

    Our taxes paid for these four to travel with their aides, a political campaign donor and others under the guise of “sister city” partnerships – without a compelling reason, and with no return on investment.

    The four supervisors did this out of a sense of entitlement, and Loudoun taxpayers paid 100% of the bill. Then, after being confronted by an investigative reporter for WJLA-TV7, they doubled down, and Chair Randall defended their actions. Many of their political allies have done the same, including Laura Tekrony, my opponent in the contest for Supervisor, Little River District. Ms. Tekrony is Chair Randall’s chief legislative aide, and her prolonged silence about the abuse is telling.

    Instead of an apology or accountability from the four elected supervisors, Loudoun is being fed lies that more than $1.37 billion in investments and 2,500 local jobs resulted from these and similar “sister city” trips. In fact, the trips have produced absolutely nothing in economic benefits – zero dollars and no jobs, as documented by the county’s own records. (more…)

  • Who Knew?

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    sherlockj

    Henrico Doctors Hospital courtesy HCA

    by James C. Sherlock

    I just came across a fact that surprised me considering how much I have studied Virginia hospitals.

    Henrico Doctors’ Hospital with 767 beds and CJW Medical Center with 758 beds, both in Richmond, rank numbers five and six in size in the entire 180-hospital empire of HCA, the largest private hospital system in America.

    Together they represent HCA’s largest market presence by far.

    Go Richmond.

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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