As the Longwood community settles back on campus, the ongoing internal discussion and controversy over the use, budgeting and June 2024 ‘sweep’ of local funds has entered its third month. According to university officials, the Board of Visitors will discuss further revisions to the local funds policy at its Sept. 13 meeting.
The ‘sweep,’ as it has been referred to by University President W. Taylor Reveley IV, was of $2,524,027 according to university documents (link) obtained by The Rotunda through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Reveley sat down for an interview with The Rotunda on Aug. 16, where he took responsibility for a “communication fumble” and said he would be “spend[ing] time with different parts of campus” to explain the new policy and lack of communication.
Reveley confirmed in late August he would seek to go back to the Board of Visitors and change the local funds policy to prevent future sweeps, first recommended by American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Longwood Chapter President and Professor of Mathematics Dr. Bill Abrams, according to Reveley.
Proposed policy revisions to the local funds policy were not included in the publicly available Meeting Materials published online several days prior to the meeting. However, in an email statement to The Rotunda on Sept. 12, University Spokesperson and Deputy to the President Matt McWilliams confirmed the Board would in fact revisit the policy at its next meeting.
“The local-funds policy changes will certainly continue this board meeting. We just didn’t want them to be part of a larger consent agenda that typically gets one vote on a number of items – instead the changes are planned to be presented and voted on separately,” McWilliams said.
As the Board of Visitors prepares to revise the local funds policy once again, backlash among the faculty continues to spread.
The Faculty Senate, chaired by Professor of Sociology Dr. Lee Bidwell, met for the first time of the academic year on Sept. 5. There, Bidwell gave a report to senators on the issue of local funds, breaking down the timeline from the initial ‘sweep’ to a letter she and three colleagues had sent to Reveley earlier that day. The Rotunda has requested a copy of this letter and is awaiting approval from faculty signatories.
Bidwell finished her report with, “We're having to clean up a mess that we didn't make, and so I'm trying to make that clear to folks up above that they created this mess, but the faculty seem to have to come together and push to get answers. It shouldn't be this hard to get answers. It shouldn't be this hard to get information.”
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Larissa Smith, who serves as an ex-officio member of Faculty Senate, took questions from senators seeking clarifications over how the new policy is working in practice.
Smith announced an Enrollment and Budget Forum to take place on Tuesday, Sept. 24 at 3:30 p.m., where she, Reveley, and Vice President of Administration and Finance Matt McGregor are confirmed to be providing updates on the revenue forecast, as well as addressing frequently-asked questions from faculty and staff members. Smith also expressed hope that recently-promoted Vice President of Strategic Operations Jennifer Green would be able to attend and give updates on the freshman class and retention of sophomores.
At one point during the meeting, Abrams – a faculty senator in addition to his role as AAUP chapter president – pressed Smith on a reported reduction in Departmental Education and General (E&G) budgets campuswide. Education and General funds are those that come from tuition and state appropriations. This led to a tense exchange between the two.
In response to his question, Smith said, “I talked with Matt [McGregor], and we received an updated operating plan where I was asked to look again at the E&G budgets and see where I could make reductions. So, I worked understanding then how local funds were to be part of total spend. I worked to take a look at where, in E&G, that I could reduce expenses.”
Abrams then asked Smith where these funds were allocated after reductions, to which she said, “The budget’s being reduced.” Abrams pressed back, and said, “The state’s not sending us less money this year than they were last year.” Smith, in response, said, “I don't know at this time, and I think we can put that on the list for the budget forum.”
The Faculty Senate meeting is the most recent of several public gatherings among faculty members since June, including the President’s Welcome and Opening Faculty Meeting.
The Rotunda anonymously received a recording of the President’s Welcome, an annual event where the university president addresses and updates faculty and staff prior to taking questions.
At the President’s Welcome on Aug. 20, Reveley faced questions and criticism from faculty and staff members over communication, shared governance, and his credibility. Reveley once again apologized for the lack of communication. “I realized in retrospect, that any number of words that I've used in the past didn't quite translate to most people, and I felt really bad about that, and I'm working hard to help explain the change going forward,” Reveley said.
He also explained why he did not use the endowment to cover the costs incurred by the Virginia Military Survivors & Dependents Education Program (VMSDEP). “The short answer is, the speed with which the situation was unfolding made that essentially impossible,” he said.
Reveley also touched on this during his Aug. 16 interview with The Rotunda, where he explained, “When you hear about places that are having financial challenges to start with, their endowment tends not to be particularly sizable. And then in addition, they tend to be what's called ‘raiding the corpus,’ digging into the actual asset itself.”
Reveley then spoke at the annual Opening Faculty Meeting on Aug. 23, where he addressed faculty and took more questions from faculty members on the local funds issue. Faculty members pressed him over salaries, the local funds “sweep,” annual giving, and other topics.
One faculty member asked him, in reference to covering VMSDEP costs with endowment funds, “[At the President’s Welcome], you mentioned that we didn't have time, because of the nature of the beast of this political event, to go into the endowment and get that endowment money… So now I'm asking, do we have time to go back to the endowment and get some of that endowment money and return our local funds?” She also mentioned a scholarship the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science had raised money for in honor of since-retired Professor Dr. Sharon Emerson-Stonnell.
Reveley said he is “generally looking into this,” and that he is “eager to know about things like that in particular circumstances, to try to set the world right to the extent that I can.”
The Rotunda is continuing to follow this story, and will provide another update in the coming days with comments from Rector of the Board of Visitors Ron White. Furthermore, The Rotunda is actively seeking donors interested in sharing their thoughts and opinions on the policy change and “sweep” in June. Donors interested in sharing their thoughts are invited to contact therotunda@live.longwood.edu.
The Rotunda has also requested and received comments from Vice President for Institutional Advancement Courtney Hodges and is working to continue reporting on the impact local funds policy changes and controversy will have on donors and philanthropy at Longwood.
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UPDATE - SEPT. 13, 2024 (12:29PM)
The Board of Visitors has unanimously approved revisions to the local funds policy (link). Follow-up article to come.
Maugans Alumni Center, Meeting Place of Faculty Senate
