A dry and seasonable period follows for most of next week
Peter Blake, director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, is leaving his job by the end of the calendar year.
Blake, 66, has been the council’s director for 12 years. He announced his departure this week.
SCHEV approves enrollment projections and degrees of study for Virginia’s 15 public universities and 23 community colleges. It also enacts legislation, tracks statistics and implements a vision for higher education in the state.
Blake
Blake leaves at a time of great change. College enrollment in the state has declined almost 4% in the past decade, and it is expected to generally decline for the next 10 to 15 years. While the state’s largest and most competitive colleges are generally prospering, other schools are struggling to fill their seats.
People are also reading…
The cost of education has continued to rise, too. Most colleges in the state announced tuition hikes for the fall semester.
Blake joined SCHEV as a research associate in 1985. He later worked for the House Appropriations Committee, was deputy secretary of education under then-Gov. Mark Warner and later was vice chancellor of the Virginia Community College System.
“Few careers allow one to work on important issues with smart, capable and committed people on important issues,” Blake said in a statement. “Higher education does indeed change lives, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to help make Virginia one of the best states for education.”
The council’s board members will hire a new director. Blake said he will take time off before making plans for the future.
From the Archives: WCVE-TV
W.C.V.E.
11-17-1964: Technician monitors program at dedication of E.T.V. station. Ceremony was broadcast live today over WCVE-TV's UHF facilities.
W.C.V.E.
07-17-1970: B. W. Spiller, general manager of Central Virginia Educational Television Corp (WCVE-Channel 23), peers through the view finder of a General Electric color television camera given to his station by Jefferson Standard Broadcasting Co. of Virginia, operator of WWBT, Channel 12. Holding up Channel 23 call letters is Joseph W. Timberlake Jr., vice president and managing director of WWBT. The camera, valued at $40,000 will allow Channel 23 to present remote telecasts, including City Council coverage, in color.
W.C.V.E.
12-13-1977: A workmen was lowered into a 33-foot-diameter dish-shaped antenna that was put into place yesterday at the Central Virginia Educational Television Station to receive programs beamed from a satellite. The installation at WCVE-WCVW is one of about 150 such receive-only antennas being installed at educational TV stations around the nation as part of the Public Broadcasting Service's plans to use a satellite rather than telephone lines to transmit programs. The 4 1/2-ton antenna here will be finely tuned by technicians in about a week, a WCVE spokesman said yesterday, but it's not expected to go into operation until late May, when other stations in the Southeast are ready. Similar receiving antennas are to be installed at stations in Norfolk and Roanoke.
W.C.V.E.
09-14-1964: B.M. Spiller (left) and Dennis Starling check tape equipment in studio of WCVE-TV.
W.C.V.E.
02-18-1986: Third graders find same teacher in two different places. Mrs. Marriot Maynard beside video-taped TV program.
W.C.V.E.
03-21-1966: W.C.V.E. T.V. Chesterfield County Mr. John E. Payne, Jr., control room supervisor.
W.C.V.E.
06-07-1967: Boys become actors to help in television teaching. Mrs. A. J. Stewart photographs Henry Rowe, Jim Hecht, George Chauncey.
W.C.V.E.
03-26-1964: Children in Prince Edward School study science with help of television. Complementary material on moon's phases is gained in classroom.
W.C.V.E.
02-10-1960: Teacher Ann Weaver conducts a television course. Children watch for half-hour, then practice.
W.C.V.E.
11-13-1963: Parents join their children in watching an educational television program in Miss Edith Gordon's fifth grade class at the J.E.B. Stuart Elementary School. The Richmond district of Parent-Teacher Associations, supporting the plans of the Central Virginia Educational Television Corp. for an ETV station here, asked elementary schools within a 50-mile radius to invite parents to class for a look at ETV for National Education Week. J.E.B. Stuart was one of the schools which did so. The district is asking its member P.T.A.s to subscribe funds for the ETV station.
W.C.V.E.
08-31-1964: Mrs. Marjorie H. Cosby (left), Mrs. Margaret Berry watch test pattern. Teachers could see ETV Station's broadcast at Laburnum School.
W.C.V.E.
10-03-1982: WCVE-TV (channel 23) facility on Sesame Street in Chesterfield County.
W.C.V.E.
07-19-1979: Channel 23 crew sets up a mobile unit outside cell block 'B.'
W.C.V.E.
06-18-1969: This is the production center of Virginia's newest educational television station, WVPT in Harrisonburg. The facility, beside a lake was on the campus of Madison College, was dedicated earlier this month. Dedication speakers included U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr. and State Sen. George Aldhizer II of Harrisonburg.
Eric Kolenich
Reporter
Eric Kolenich writes about higher education, health systems and more for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He joined the newspaper in 2009 and spent 11 years in the Sports section. (804) 649-6109
