In their meeting Thursday the Board of Visitors approved the strategic goals for the University of Virginia’s College at Wise for the upcoming financial year.
The College at Wise has a Board of Trustees, but it must report to the Board of Visitors.
Committee Chair John Macfarlane III described the relationship between the University and the College at Wise as a formal one.
The Committee’s goals, which Macfarlane and Wise Chancellor Donna Henry created, include student recruitment and retention, increased coordination between the University and the College at Wise and regional economic development.
Henry said the College at Wise aims to add 600 new students by 2020. The College at Wise is considering different recruitment options in order to accomplish this, especially in light of Southwestern Virginia’s population decline.
Much of this growth is likely to come outside of Southwestern Virginia, especially given the college’s success at attracting non-local students.
Mark Clark, faculty consulting member on the the University of Virginia’s College at Wise Committee, said that less than fifty percent of students are local. Many students are drawn to the College at Wise due to its affordable cost.
“We’ve kept tuition intentionally low,” Clark said. “Most of our Foundation money is in the form of scholarships, so we give a lot of aid.”
Kathy Still, director of news and media relations at Wise, said that most of the College’s 85 million dollar endowment is used for student scholarships.
“We’ve consistently had one of the lowest student debts for any public liberal arts colleges in the nation, not just Virginia, for about twenty years now,” Still said. “One reason for that is we do all we do to make sure our students get scholarships or funding before they have to apply for any student loans.”
The College at Wise has operated without University financial intervention, Macfarlane said.
“During my tenure, they have stood on their own economically,” Macfarlane said. “The combination of their tuition, their endowment, their philanthropic support and state funding supports them.”
At the meeting, Henry also announced the College at Wise had passed the accreditation of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
Once a decade, every institution has to go through an accreditation process to determine if the school lives up to the standards set by SACS. During the most recent SACS report, the College received no recommendations for improvement, which Clark said was “the best you can get.”
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