Bacon's Rebellion

Someone has to ask the question: Has Eugene Trani stayed on too long as president of Virginia Commonwealth University?

I have enormous respect for Trani, who has done an extraordinary job building VCU as an institution and will no doubt go down in Richmond history as one of its great, visionary leaders. He has transformed VCU from a third-tier, little respected “State U” into an up-and-comer with nationally recognized programs. By emphasizing interdisciplinary programs between schools and departments that traditionally stay pigeon-holed, he has made VCU a genuinely exciting place to study and conduct research.

The VCU president has always had his critics. Some said he was too authoritarian, or that he emphasized bricks and mortar over program development. But there was no arguing with his ability to raise money from the community or squeeze more funds out of a parsimonious General Assembly.

Now those accomplishments are beginning to fray. The simultaneous eruption of the Rodney Monroe and Philip Morris controversies (see “Scandal Reaches Critical Mass at VCU”) raise the possibility that systemic problems might plague VCU’s administration.

Frankly, I have to wonder if Trani’s heart is still in the job. Trani, who turns 69 in November, originally planned to retire from the VCU presidency a few years ago, but the board of trustees apparently could not imagine a VCU without him and begged him to stay another five years. (I draw from memory — I cannot find any reference to the contract renewal on the VCU website. If someone can find it, please let me know.)

While he agreed to stay on, Trani maintained other interests. For example, he serves on three outside boards: LandAmerica Financial, a Fortune 500 title insurance company; Universal Corp., a tobacco trading company; and the SunTrust Central Virginia Bank. Directors at the first two companies (and perhaps the third) are highly compensated and entail significant commitments.

Meanwhile, Trani continues to pursue his academic interests. A historian, he has managed to juggle his administrative duties with scholarly research and writing. His official VCU biography lists an impressive number of columns, scholarly articles and even books written during his tenure as president. In 2005, he spent the summer in Oxford, England, working on a soon-to-be-published book, “Distorted Mirrors: American Images of Russia and China, 1891 – 1991,” and he was intending to spend this summer at Harvard.

Whether this workload — enough to keep two or three normal people busy — affected Trani’s health is a matter of conjecture. But there is no getting around the fact that he was admitted for emergency surgery two weeks ago for a quintuple bypass surgery. A VCU press release stated that he would spend six to eight weeks at home recuperating.

I’ve met Trani a couple of times, including once a few years ago when I interviewed him for an in-house VCU publication. He spoke enthusiastically about his research into early U.S.-Soviet relations — he was particularly interested in the U.S. expeditionary force dispatched to Archangel in 1919, as I recall. Trani also displayed a voracious appetite for information. One thing that struck me: He made a practice of Googling “Virginia Commonwealth University” every morning to see what people were saying about the institution.

Gene Trani is a remarkable man. But it’s a legitimate question to ask: Has he taken on too much? Given his multiple pursuits and responsibilities, not to mention his ill health, can he possibly stay on top of the pressing issues that consume Virginia’s largest university? Who’s calling the shots in his absence? Is the eruption of simultaneous scandals a coincidence, or a sign of a deeper malaise at VCU? I don’t know the answer. But let us hope the Board of Visitors is asking that question.

It looks like Peter beat me to the punch on the latest developments at Virginia Commonwealth University (see “A Tale of Two Outrages.”) Rather than repeat the points he made, I want to amplify his comments about the “neo-Stalinist” atmosphere at VCU. I wouldn’t choose that particular, highly loaded adjective to describe the Trani administration — nobody’s been hauled off in the middle of the night and executed — but there is big, festering problem that must be dealt with.

By way of background: I criticized Style Weekly magazine last month in R’Biz for publishing an article that gave breathless credence to fears expressed anonymously by VCU faculty members and researchers that the administration would retaliate if they openly expressed their objections to the controversial contracts with Philip Morris USA. Style noted that “senior people” at VCU had left because of the Philip Morris controversy but did not identify them. The weekly failed to present any other evidence that the dissidents’ fears were grounded in previous VCU actions.

Well, I owe Style an apology. Peter’s subsequent reporting turned up the fact that one senior person (not “people”) at VCU — former vice president of research Marsha Torr — did depart in a controversy over Philip Morris a few years ago. And today we read in the Times-Dispatch that VCU officials made “improper threats” in an unrelated investigation into a degree improperly given then-Richmond police chief Rodney D. Monroe.

The controversy over Monroe’s degree erupted into a full-fledged uproar when two prominent VCU faculty members resigned their senior administrative positions in protest earlier this week. Robert D. Holsworth, a noted Virginia political commentator, stepped down as dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences, and Michael D. Pratt resigned as interim director of the school of government and public affairs. As Karin Kapsidelis reports for the T-D, the VCU board will take up allegations contained in letters written by two of the four senior officials — presumably Holsworth and Pratt — that “some improper interviewing” took place during the Monroe-degree investigation.

Kapsedelis quotes Dan Ream, president of the faculty senate, as saying that there were “improper threats made to potential tenure. … You don’t threaten tenure.”

Well, if VCU officials can threaten tenured professors, non-tenured professors and research staff cannot be blamed for being skittish about expressing their concerns publicly about the Philip Morris contracts. Add to this latest development the fact that the task force assigned to study the university’s research contracts and recommend new guidelines is chaired by Francis Macrina, the vp of research whose underlings negotiated the contracts, and there is every reason for outsiders to wonder about the integrity of the process.

VCU is the state’s largest, fastest-growing university, and it’s a pillar of the Richmond economy. VCU is an engine of economic development, critical to the growth of the life sciences sector in the region. Anyone who wants to build a more prosperous, livable and sustainable Richmond region needs to take an interest in what happens at VCU.

As Peter rightly asks in the context of this dual controversy, if William & Mary alumni were outraged by the culture-war antics (my word, not his) of President Gene R. Nichol, where are Richmond’s community leaders and VCU alumni? Why aren’t they expressing outrage — or at least concern — about events at VCU that go to the heart of academic and research integrity? It’s a fair question.

The drumbeat of bad news continues at Virginia Commonwealth University. The latest is that four top officials have resigned as part of the controversy over former Richmond Police Chief Rodney D. Monroe’s improperly awarded VCU undergraduate degree.

According to news accounts, one of the reasons for one of the resignations was that when VCU officials investigated the Monroe degree, threats may have been made that tenured professors might lose their tenure.

Wow, that’s pretty strong stuff that stabs at the heart of academic freedom.

But I can believe it. When I spoke with dozens folks in the VCU community for my reporting on another scandal, the erroneously secretive research contracts VCU entered into with Philip Morris USA, I constantly heard of the neo-Stalinist atmosphere at VCU. Faculty were afraid their e-mails were monitored and used their cell phones, instead of university lines, to communicate. After all the contracts that VCU’s vice president for research now says are flawed stipulated that any discussion or inquiry of the two research deals had to be reported to Philip Morris (Big Brother) immediately.

So, I keep asking myself, where’s the outrage? At least the outrage on my outrage-meter that goes as high as that involving Gene R. Nichol, the former president of another state school, William & Mary, who ran afoul of Virginia’s right wing thought police and was hounded out of office.

Nichol was a highly regarded legal scholar who had taught at law schools in Colorado and North Carolina. He also was a liberal and an activist with the American Civil Liberties Union. Nichol did a lot of good at W&M by upgrading the school’s financial aid program to reach more minority and poor students and had to deal with demands by the NCAA that W&M drop the feathers from its logo because they might offend Native Americans.

Then, Nichol really stepped in it by having a cross removed from W&M’s chapel with orders to display it when Christian-related activities were taking place in the structure. That set off howls of rage from the “Christians” in Virginia’s right wing community even though there are Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc., who attend the state-funded school and might find the implied religious bias of the crucifix offensive. (And please, dear readers don’t come after me for not understanding your version of “Christianity.” I am a former altar boy who had it all drilled into him by the Jesuits and whose greatly-respected uncle was a Catholic priest who spent his life working with the poor.)

The cross thing really brought out the yahoos. One was Jim McGlothlin, an alumnus who made his zillions ripping coal out of the ground. Miffed at Nichol, he withdrew a $12 million donation.

Now back in my day, my school would have told McGlothlin where to stick it. But not W&M. They whimpered and scampered and howled. The right wing thought police went on alert and the ouster began. It wasn’t helped when Nichol, correctly pointing to academic freedom, did not force out a sex worker exhibit at the school. After all, this isn’t Liberty University or even Georgetown where one might not expect such as show.

It was enough, however, to do Nichol, in. He resigned and left, leaving W&M for the worse.

Move on over to VCU. Now there you have a far more serious situation where academic freedom seems to be getting trampled again and again. Rules were bent to allow Police Chief Monroe to win a degree in ways not permitted to your ordinary 21-year-old. But then, Monroe was tight with Richmond Mayor Doug Wilder and, by extension, with VCU President Eugene Trani. Ditto tobacco research. After weeks of dodging the issue, abetted by Richmond’s local rag of a newspaper, Trani’s junta finally admitted that the secrecy aspects the tobacco contracts were wrong.

What about this reign of fear that wafts over VCU’s two campuses? There’s an awful lot of smoke. And this is serious stuff, not some parlor debate about a crucifix in a public school. But then, Nichol had “liberal” tendencies and he had to be targeted and smeared and ousted as if it were the days of Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.

Peter Galuszka

Fluor Corporation and Transurban (USA) Inc. formally broke ground on the Capital Beltway HOT lane yesterday. Patrick Flaherty, head of Fluor’s infrastructure business, touted the project as a model for similar partnerships nationally. A press release from the P.R. firm for the project reminds readers of the benefits of the public-private partnership:

• Fourteen miles of HOT lanes – two new lanes in each direction – from the Springfield Interchange to just north of the Dulles Toll Road;

• Replacement of more than $250 million of aging infrastructure, including more than 50 bridges and overpasses;

• Upgrades to 11 key interchanges, including improved connections at I-66 and three new access points into the Tysons Corner area;

• Construction of more than 70,000 linear feet (13 miles) of new sound walls to replace current 30,000 feet of protection.

The ground-breaking appears to be stimulating closer public scrutiny than the project ever received when it was still being negotiated. Bacon’s Rebellion raised questions two weeks ago about covenants that would restrict the Virginia Department of Transportation from making improvements that might siphon toll payers away from the Beltway. (See “The Capital Beltway HOT Lane Deal: Did the Kaniacs Give Away the Store?“)

Then on Sunday, Eric Weiss with the Washington Post wrote an article focusing on financial penalties that would kick in if the percentage of carpoolers exceeded 24 percent of the traffic on the HOT lanes — a provision that could cost the Commonwealth $1 million a year.

Barbara Reese, deputy transportation secretary and a key negotiator on the deal, said the subsidy would kick in when the HOT lanes are at maximum capacity for more than 30 minutes. At that point, the state is liable for every 15 minutes that the HOT lanes are at maximum capacity for that day. Wrote Weiss: “She said the estimated $1 million-a-year liability exposure to the state seemed reasonable to state officials. She acknowledged, however, that the spike in carpooling and transit use could increase the state’s liability, but officials said they could not estimate by how much.”

Here are the higher-level questions: What performance standards are built into the contract? What levels of service must be maintained? Will the HOT lanes be optimized for providing mobility for the maximum number of people — or for generating the most toll revenue?

The project very well could become a model for the rest of the country, as Flaherty suggests. But we won’t know if it’s a model to be emulated or one to be avoided until we have more transparency regarding the deal that the state cut with the private operators.

I’m a big proponent of the private sector playing a larger role in building Virginia’s transportation infrastructure. But there is no inherent reason that VDOT couldn’t build the HOT lanes and administer them to optimize the public benefit. Indeed, the public may reject future public-private partnerships if fears persist that the deals are negotiated for the benefit of the private operators and/or the political class rather than for the benefit of the taxpayers and the public. The full contract needs to be made public.

It’s summer, the air is sweltering and tempers are flaring. A most propitious moment for the latest edition of Bacon’s Rebellion… the July 21, 2008, edition. (Never miss an issue, have the e-zine mailed directly to your in-box. Sign up for a free subscription.)

Here are this week’s manifestos:

No Salvaging the Mill Towns
Ten years and $400 million has failed to transform the economies of Southside and Southwest Virginia. Until leaders confront dispersed human settlement patterns, they will never address root causes.
by James A. Bacon

Thank You, Joe
Former state Senator Joe Gartlan left his fingerprints all over the Code of Virginia and boosted the future of the Commonwealth.
by Doug Koelemay

Rocky Mountain Low
A WaPo story highlights the threat of converting Montana wilderness into masses of McLodges. But there’s more to the story: Developers are destroying the land they exploit and, with rising energy prices, are creating the ghost (non) towns of tomorrow.
by EM Risse

Democrats for (School) Choice
Putting the interest of the nation’s children ahead of those of the teachers unions, an increasing number of Dems are supporting school choice.
by Chris Braunlich

Summer Sweats
Tim Kaine looks like a long shot to get the VP nod from Barack Obama. But it’s fun thinking about the what-ifs back in the Old Dominion if the governor were drafted into national politics.
by Norman Leahy

My Lunch with Big Oil
Mr. Big Oil spilled the beans: Offshore oil drilling means bupkis for Virginia. He ginned up the flap here in the Old Dominion to win support for opening up California, Alaska and the Gulf where the big barrels are.
by Peter Galuszka

How Tim Kaine Lost his Mojo
Tim Kaine campaigned as a liberal who would oppose tax increases. He has governed as a moderate who has advocated tax increases. Many Virginians feel betrayed.
by Frank Kilgore

Nice & Curious Questions
The Developer’s Daughter: Road Names in Virginia
by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

I know it has been mentioned, but don’t know of a separate post here for Virginia’s Civil Rights monument.

I look forward to seeing it when I am Richmond.

This $2.6 million memorial is worth every penny. It’s exactly what the Commonwealth should do to elevate and perpetuate the best of our civilization. From one generation to the next.

I’d love to know what was it in the education, experience, family or faith of Barbara Jones that lead her – at age 16 – to lead the walkout at Moton High School in 1951. How remarkable a young woman.

What a proud legacy for all Virginians.

Many people have the wrong idea about “green” houses. They think of Mongolian-style yurts, or solar-mounted rooftops, or kitchen counters made of recycled glass. But going green rarely entails anything that exotic or expensive, says Karl Bren, executive director Earthcraft Virginia. “It’s just a matter of paying an attention to the details. Like making sure the [HVAC] ductwork isn’t leaking.”

Green building doesn’t have to be expensive, stressed Bren and two other panelists at a Wednesday panel discussion hosted by the Richmond branch of the Urban Land Institute. Anecdotal evidence backed up by formal studies generally conclude that erecting commercial and residential buildings according to green standards costs only 1 percent to 3 percent more than conventional building. Those costs can be recouped many times over in the form of lower energy bills, lower water bills, lower maintenance and improved health.

An up-front expenditure of an additional $3 to $5 per square foot can yield $50 to $60 in savings over a 20-year period, said Sandra Leibowitz Earley, a principal with Sustainable Design Consulting. The more effort a developer makes early in the project on setting goals and assembling an integrated design team, she added, the more favorable the economics look.

While green, or sustainable, building consumes more up-front resources in design costs, it can shave expenses by reducing the size of HVAC systems, and it reaps big savings in lower utility bills. By better controlling moisture and mildew, green buildings also reduce the incidence of asthma – now the leading cause of admittance into emergency rooms, Bren said.

Whether your goal is energy independence from foreign despots or reduction of the carbon dioxide emissions implicated in global warming, switching to green building standards must be a central element of national energy policy. According to Earley, buildings account for 37 percent of all U.S. energy use, 12 percent of water consumption, 40 percent of non-industrial waste and 35 percent of CO2 emissions. As an aside, buildings also are far more polluted (in ways that effect humans) than the outdoors.

The Richmond region is five to seven years behind more progressive regions of the country in embracing green building techniques, the panelists said, but the message is catching on.

Bren’s not-for-profit enterprise provides a certification process, similar to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), for residential housing. Earley’s Richmond-based company provides sustainable design services to builders and developers – mainly in the Washington area but in the Richmond region as well.

The third panelist, Lynn J. Rogien, is the green project manager for W.M. Jordan, one of the region’s largest construction companies. When viewed on a life-cycle basis, green commercial buildings offer superior rates of return for investors, he said. While up-front design costs and construction costs are marginally higher, he said, utilities are significantly lower. So are O&M (operations and maintenance costs). And here’s the kicker: Developers can charge higher lease rates.

“The market demand is changing,” Rogien said. “Developers have discovered that they can make a higher return on investment when they make a green, or high-performance, building. Our country is in a paradigm shift. We’re changing the way we do business construction.”

(Cross-posted from R’Biz.)

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s action yesterday in expanding the state’s telework policy to the 120 employees working in the Governor’s office and cabinet is no more than a single step. But it pushes the Commonwealth of Virginia along on a very important journey.

“Rising fuel prices, the escalating cost of commuting to work, worsening traffic congestion and reduced air quality compel a change in the business culture of state agencies,” Kaine said in a press release. “Telework reduces energy consumption, both in the amount of gasoline used for daily commuting and in office building energy costs. This policy provides a timely opportunity to create a culture of conservation within the state workforce, which can serve as an example for Virginia businesses in the private sector.”

Well, technically, Kaine’s announcement wasn’t the first step. But the governor’s announcement serves as a prod to the private sector to make similar accommodations.

According to the press release, more than four dozen employees of the Cabinet and Governor’s Office had already started teleworking or utilizing alternative schedules for part of their work week. Nearly 23,000 state employees have been ascertained to be eligible for telework, based on the nature of their work — and 5,000 are actually engaged in it. The Department of Taxation alone has 591 teleworking employees.

Another 24,000 state employees are eligible to work alternate schedules such as 10-hour, four-day work weeks — and 14,000 do.

Meanwhile, Kaine is asking state agencies to work with their employees to encourage use of alternate transportation. A recent survey indicated 16,218 of Virginia’s approximately 95,000 state employees use some form of alternate transportation – public transportation, van pools, car pools, even bicycles – to commute to work.

These are all positive developments. Kaine should be commended, and the Commonwealth should serve as an inspiration to others who have yet to embrace the possibilities created by laptops, cell phones, PDAs and the like.