For this new academic school year, Longwood University’s newest president W. Taylor Reveley IV has many goals to improve the campus by growing its reputation, its fundraising, its curriculum and much more. He also comments on how he hopes to further the academic strategic plan as well as faculty income.
Now following a quick succession of three presidents, including President Patricia Cormier, Brigadier President Patrick Finnegan and Interim President Marge Connelly, Reveley stated, “What needs to happen is to continue the momentum that has been building.”
Reveley stated that one of his short-term goals is to understand more about Longwood University by being sociable with students on campus and by attending events, such as New Lancer Days.
He said, “It sounds simple, but really having a sense as to what is on students’ minds makes a big difference as a place.”
He also plans to speak to various community groups in the Farmville and Prince Edward County communities.
Reveley stated that there are further moves to broaden Longwood University’s reputation statewide and nationally. One of the ways Reveley hopes to do this is through Longwood’s athletics.
“Athletics are a key way for a university to make its mark nationally, and I think we are probably poised to have a great year from an athletics standpoint,” Reveley said.
Reveley also hopes to bring in more private funding to the campus by bringing more speakers, which may provide more opportunities for alumni and guests to revisit Longwood.
Reveley estimated that about 15 percent of alumni donate annually, which he stated is “fairly typical” of private institutions, but that public institutions tend to receive more.
While focusing on broadening outreach to alumni, there will be more of an emphasis on the number of alumni who contribute as opposed to how much each alumnus contributes.
There are also plans for more of an emphasis on fundraising from organizations, such as grant-making foundations and other corporations.
Reveley stated that Longwood receives several million dollars in private funds each year, while receiving around $25 million from the state government.
On eventual changes to Longwood University’s curriculum, Reveley said, “Academics are what make Longwood great in the final analysis. So, we’ve been thinking through what we need to do to keep making the academics better and better, and part of it is thinking about the curriculum.”
Plans to reshape the university curriculum will involve Longwood students, faculty and staff collaborating by giving a “top to bottom look at how it ... fits together.”
Reveley hopes to eliminate any redundancies that may be within the decade and a half old curriculum that has not had such an effort since the late ‘90s.
“It’ll be a really healthy thing and an energizing thing to think through how the curriculum ought to best fit together for 21st century students,” Reveley said. He stated that one of the difficulties revolving around Longwood University’s current curriculum is the difficulty of changing majors, which may result in many courses already taken, not counting toward one’s degree. He hopes for the curriculum to be “intertwined more to make that kind of decision easier to make, rather than making that decision and at that point you had a good number more classes than would actually count towards graduating with that major.” Concerns around student retention rate and students graduating in a timely manner within four years are tied together, according to Reveley.
On raising Longwood’s retention rate, he stated that efforts that will greatly contribute to this include more tutor- ing, mentoring, advising and that those students who may need help in any way are accommodated. He also added that emphasizing Longwood University’s history, traditions, activities and school spirit might also contribute to aiding the issue.
On tuition, Reveley stated that he hopes for the tuition rates to remain steady as op- posed to continuing the ongoing climb experi- enced over the past few years.
This 2013-2014 academic school year received a 4.1 percent increase in tuition and mandatory fees to in- state students and 4.5 percent increase to out- of-state students.
Reveley stated, “The retention issue relates to the tuition issue in the following way: when retention is a little bit lower, it means that if you are going to maintain the same budget, you essentially have to charge the new people a little bit more.”
“So, the better, and better and better that Longwood does with retention and graduation, the easier, and easier and easier it is to hold tuition constant,” Reveley said.
While speaking on the academic strategic plan, Reveley stated that there will be more attention on assisting Longwood professors with further fostering professional develop- ment, research opportunities and sabbaticals.
“Faculty here at Longwood teach a lot more than professors at most universities do just on the sheer number of courses they’re teaching each year, and that takes a great deal of effort,” he said.
Reveley added his hope for further op- portunities for research by Longwood faculty and staff.
Concerning faculty income, Reveley said, “That is going to take a lot of attention as well as something that we’ve already been working on together, but that we’ve got a good bit of more work to do on that score too.” Reveley commented that the root of the problem with raising the income of Long- wood professors is limited state support.
He stated that approximately 80 percent of the $100 million annual budget for Longwood University goes to salaries and benefits for employees, faculty and staff.
While considering what legacy he may hope to leave behind in the future, Reveley stated, “I would hope in some far distant future as I’m looking back on my time at Longwood ... [the university] will have navigated these changes really well and that in fact people across the country will point to Longwood as an example of one of the institutions that really navigates these changes well.”
President Reveley follows two generations of leadership after his grandfather W. Taylor Reveley II, former president of H-SC, and his father, W. Taylor Reveley III, president of the College of William & Mary.
