Dayton-Miami Valley Consortium Records

The beginning of the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium (DMVC) can be traced to a meeting that was held on March 16, 1967. During this gathering, the colleges and universities of the future DMVC decided to expand a plan for a joint research program into a full-blown consortium. The particulars of such an organization were to be submitted as a formal proposal to the Research Branch of the U.S. Office of Education. The University of Dayton consented to act as the submitting agent for the rest of the schools. At a meeting on March 31, 1967, these institutions approved the actual proposal and its submission to the above mentioned agency. Although the proposal did not set forth any special projects that the DMVC wished to have funded, it did state that the goals of its research would be the facilitation of increased institutional cooperation, improvement of curricula, development of new programs and courses, reduction of costs, and centralization of certain functions. This declaration of a five-fold purpose appears to be more of a mission statement than an outline of clearly focused projects.

The collection does not indicate any definite date on which the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium came into being as a legal entity. A mailing sent out by the consortium stated that it was founded in the Spring of 1967. It is assumed that the DMVC saw the light of day when it was awarded funds under the Consortium and Research and Development (CORD) grant in May of 1967. This grant was remarkable since it went into effect prior to the appointment of an executive director. Although not unheard of, such a procedure was highly unusual. In the absence of a CEO, the Reverend Raymond Roesch, then president of the University of Dayton, acted as the administrator of the consortium until its first president, Dr. Charles J. Armstrong, assumed his duties in November of 1967. The criticism has been voiced that the time lapse between the legal beginning of the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium and the commencement of Dr. Armstrong's term of office resulted in a delay of planning. However, one must be cautious of any judgment based on these papers. It must be kept in mind that the collection is the contribution of only one member of the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium and that it covers a limited time period.

The financial means to start-up the consortium came from two sources, the CORD grant and the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. In the application for the CORD grant, a total amount of $120,000 was requested with $50,000 to be received during the first year of the grant. Also asked for were two renewal extensions. The life of the grant was anticipated to run from September of 1967 to August of 1970. In addition, the consortium applied to the Kettering Foundation for a sum of $200,000 to be spent over the same period as the CORD grant. The money from the Kettering Foundation was earmarked for the initial operating expenses, including the appointments and salaries of a staff. Additional funds were to be raised from other local foundations and industries, but the benefits to the latter were never spelled out. The proposal to the Kettering Foundation is of further interest because it identifies the objectives of the consortium as well as its governance. Too, it lists the founding members of the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium.

The early meetings of the DMVC dealt with the inaugural chores that are necessary to establish an organization such as the number and identity of officers and members of the board of trustees, adoption of by-laws as well as the election of officers. It seems that the consortium, at least for its first two meetings, was very publicity-shy to its own public relation personnel as well as the press.

According to the Summary Report of Activities for the year ending August of 1968, the first year of operation was one of exploration and experimentation rather than the start of any actual projects. Indeed, the lack of projects apparently was the bane of the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium throughout all of the years covered by this collection. There is considerable evidence that the DMVC suffered from a sparsity of programs for which it was created, namely educational research. Most of the programs that were initiated by the consortium, for example its involvement the Dayton Urban Corps, the VISTA program, Headstart Supplementary Training Program, CETA, etc., were more in the nature of social action than educational research. The Summary Report of Consortium, Activities for 1970 stated as much when it said that the most important development within the consortium was the expansion of the community service activities. Yet few of these had much to do with the five-fold purpose of the DMVC, as presented in its application for the CORD grant, and it had little in common with the objectives as expressed in its application to the Kettering Foundation. The impression one gets from reading the papers is that more of the consortium's projects were improvised than carefully planned. Probably the most lasting contribution of the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium was in the area of inter-library activities. But these programs were already in operation prior to the founding of the DMVC. However, one successful program for which the consortium could claim complete credit was that of Cross-Registration.

As time progressed, the DMVC seemingly strayed increasingly further from its declared objectives. In the early 1970's, though, it must have become aware of possible changes in the method used for federal funding of community revenue sharing. This may well have led the consortium to engage in some critical self-examination. This took place some time in late December of 1972 or early January of 1973. The results of the assessment were rather disappointing. The organization was deemed to be unsuccessful in research and also to have had negative success in both promoting projects of educational research and in experimentation. The evaluation further asserted that the initiation and development of such projects were the prime reason for the governmental funding that was instrumental in creating the consortium. Furthermore, it added that few, if any, undertakings of this nature were conducted. The lack of research enterprises may even have caused the premature termination of at least one grant. While the evaluation judged the DMVC to be successful in institutional cooperation, it was careful to point out that most of these programs were started before the DMVC came in existence. Too, it rated the consortium to be only moderately successful in various other fields.

Needless to say, these results evoked considerable self-criticism on part of the board of trustees. On February 21, 1973, a special board meeting was called to find ways of strengthening the consortium's position. The questions that were raised there dealt with defining more precisely the aim of the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium together with the need for community services. How, it was asked, did the latter relate to the missions of the DMVC's member institutions? Also, what was the relationship of those services to what was taught in the member schools? Dr. Marvin C. Knudson, then president of Sinclair College, best summed up the quandary of the trustees with these remarks, "-we spend too much of our time figuring out how much we can get out of the federal government," and "we should agree on what we really want to do. There is a lot of thinking and a vague wonderment about what we have done." During the same year, nevertheless, two of the DMVC's more auspicious programs, REACH and the School of Packaging, were launched only to be closed out in 1978.

One by one government grants became sparser and less generous. The original CORD grant was reduced by 15% for its second year. All in all, the Dayton Miami Valley consortium did not come close to collecting the $120,000 that it has requested in its 1967 application. Adding to the financial woes of the consortium was the mismanagement of the Public opinion Center (POC). Started with allocation of $105,000 from the Kettering Foundation, it was so badly administered that it almost threw the DMVC into bankruptcy. This came even in spite of the infusion of money from other funds. Still, many of these programs could have been saved had the constituent schools of the consortium been willing to pay more in assessments.

It certainly cannot be said that the attrition of funds came as a total surprise to the DMVC. As early as 1968, the consortium was urged to plan for the time when federal funds could be terminated. Also, Mr. Orndorff, director of the OCS, attended a seminar in January 1973, that dealt with the fund-raising necessary to overcome the changes in federal funding.

As government grants began to dry up, the need to obtain more of them became increasingly more important. But by 1976, the DMVC had become so deprived of income that it could barely maintain a skeleton staff for the performance of its daily chores. It was suggested that, if the consortium had to pat for its own operation, it should not be expected to spend its time "selling" grants. Dr. Faiman reported to the executive committee, in 1977, that finances was the most critical issue facing the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium, mainly because it had no established, adequate source of income. Therefore, both the treasurer and the rest of the executive committee recommended to the board of trustees a considerable dues increase as essential to the continuation of a vital organization. A motion to increase the dues, brought up at a February, 1977, board meeting was tabled.

Few of the other income sources that were discussed at various times came to fruition. Even less of these paid off. A research park was envisaged, in part, to provide a long term income. Although forty acres were donated for this purpose near Fairborn, Ohio, this site evidently reverted to the donor because it could not be sufficiently utilized. Also, not much money could be raised from the local industries at that time. Even though they were encouraged at the beginning of the DMVC to join as associate members, a 1976 consortium study determined that industrial members had little to gain from their affiliation with the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium.

As indicated before, not much planning preceded the appointment of the first DMVC president. Moreover, it did not seem that planning improved much thereafter. For example, to correct the oversight of not having provided for tax exemption in its Articles of Incorporation, the consortium had to approve an amendment which, in its original form, was rejected by the Ohio Secretary of State. In 1974, the consortium discovered that it owed the Internal Revenue Service $8,000 in FICA back taxes. The consortium claimed that failure to withhold the taxes was due to a misunderstanding of the IRS regulations.

Other factors could also have been responsible for, what many considered, the less than satisfactory performance of the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium. In its effort to serve a great variety of member institutions with their own vested interest, unity of purpose, other than to secure funds, was hard to achieve. The collection speaks of differences between private and public schools, large and small schools, as well as industry and academic institutions.

In conclusion, it should be mentioned that the Dayton Miami Valley Consortium underwent a name change sometime after 1980. It is now called the Southwestern Ohio Council of Higher Education (SOCHE).