If Governor Mark Warner and lobbyists in the Martinsville area have their way, a new school will be joining other institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth.
The college, tentatively called the New College of Virginia, most likely will be located in historic Martinsville.
"The idea of a university in the Martinsville and Henry County area is partly due to geographic need of a college in that area and partly for economic purposes," said Governor Mark Warner's spokesperson, Ellen Qualls.
Martinsville was hit hard by the effects of globalization and the export of jobs overseas. The once thriving textile and tobacco manufacturing city now is experiencing double-digit unemployment, according to the New College's Director of Public Relations, Randy Jones.
The Harvest Foundation of Martinsville was the first to lay the idea of a university in Martinsville on the table.
The Harvest Foundation was founded in 2002 after the sale of the Martinsville Memorial Hospital to Province Healthcare of Brentwood, Tennessee. In 2004, when the General Assembly passed legislation to study the feasibility of establishing a university in Southside Virginia, the Foundation pledged $50 million toward locating the school in Martinsville, according to the Web site of the New College.
Those promoting the college say it would increase immensely the amount of retail in the community.
"The school would not provide any food services or anything like that, so individual retailers would have to provide food for the students," Jones said.
Urban Design Associates, an architectural firm based out of Pittsburg, is looking to blend the college with the existing historic city.
"The campus, as envisioned right now, would be put in the historical downtown and there would be three building anchors to the school," Jones said. "The three anchors would really blend the town into the campus."
Just as historic Martinsville offers a unique setting for the new college, the proposed curriculum for the school is also distinctive.
"We're proposing a non-traditional university," Jones said. "It's what we call a third-way model between traditional liberal arts and technical training. It combines the best of liberal arts and technical training."
The community response has been very welcoming to the idea of the college. Jones said that the people in the area realize that something must be done to turn around the economy.
Gov. Warner set $1.5 million aside in his budget for a college in Martinsville.
"The governor wanted to put some money into the project to keep the momentum going in Richmond," Qualls said.
Some legislators in Richmond, however, have not been as warm in their response to the project. The House Appropriations Committee slashed the amount down to $100,000.
As a result, those supporting the founding of the New College must regroup.
"Essentially there really needs to be some decisions made as to how to proceed, seeing as the state is really not coming on board as strong as we had hoped," Jones said.
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