Longwood President, W. Taylor Reveley, is coming up on his first year in office. Reveley said, “It’s hard to believe it’s been a year already.” Taking office in June, Reveley has spent time, “focusing on the extent to which Longwood is known.” “Places like Longwood energize the American dream,” said Reveley. It’s that kind of light he wants Longwood to be portrayed in, being “one of America’s great universities.”
Marketing the institution has been one of the key points in Reveley’s agenda. “Marketing works best when it’s accomplished step by step,” said the president, “rather than by putting all the effort into just one or two big events.” Reveley has been focusing not only on Longwood’s relationship with traditional media outlets, but is pushing for a stronger social media standing. In fact, during our interview he admitted to being on the “twitterverse” and can be followed @PresReveley.
Longwood has made a noticeable push towards the university’s social media presence, jumping on the “Happy” viral-video trend. Reveley has also expressed excitement to be at the university at the time of the 175th anniversary. “The 175th anniversary provides us a great opportunity to highlight all the great things about Longwood, talk about its history and talk about the future.”
Reveley is also bringing the spot light to Longwood as he invites Senator Mark Warner to deliver the commencement address. “As governor he played an instrumental role in getting us back on our feet after the Rotunda fire of 2001 and helped with all the fresh reconstruction that happened right after that,” Reveley said, “he also played a fundamental role in the transition from status as a college to status as a university in 2002.”
The president went on to explain, “It was important to find someone who had a rich connection to Longwood, but that was also imminent in American life.” Warner was also selected “in the spirit of citizen leadership,” which Reveley feels is an important aspect of the institution. “It’s not just a place that people come to get a higher degree of polish, but it’s a place people come and emerge fundamentally better.”
Reveley explains that he is putting so much effort into advertising Longwood because, “what it [Longwood] is really greatest at, is helping students transform their lives and that’s a very important thing to me.” Reveley was nothing less than positive when discussing his first year. His newly appointed Chief of Staff, Justin Pope, agreed that Longwood is, “a great place, with a lot of momentum.”
Reveley spoke highly of the welcoming environment he found at Longwood. “One of the distinctive things about Longwood, is the remarkable comradery that the place has, students have, faculty/ staff has, alumni have and I feel like I’ve been really warmly embraced in that spirit.” It is this spirit which he feels is one of Longwood’s greatest qualities.
Reveley talked about some of his fondest memories as president. “The greatest athletics march ever was a pretty cool thing,” he said, “everybody marching up Longwood Avenue with their scarves and their faces painted. That doesn’t happen at many places and that was really special to me.” Reveley also recalls seeing the freshman on Brock Commons before breaking off to meet their peer mentors saying he’ll, “always remember that.”
Reveley also admits that the year has had tragedies as well as triumphs, remembering the death of Fitzhugh Samuel back in December. Reveley touched on meeting with Samuel’s family as another huge moment in his first year.
Reveley touched on the recent tuition increase, saying he’s proud that the increase was kept to a minimum. “A 2.1% increase is still an increase,” Reveley said, “but a 2.1 increase is the lowest change in tuition fees for any public university since 2001.”
The president summed up his first year by saying, “we’ve made a lot of progress and it’s been a lot of fun.” Reveley is looking forward to the upcoming year saying he is focused on doing whatever he can to make Longwood an environment where students can thrive. “Longwood thrives to the extent that our students thrive,” Reveley said, “I loved teaching a course in the fall and I’m looking forward to doing that again.”
