James Madison University has received a $2.5 million gift for the new wing of its Carrier Library.
Alexandria residents Stan and Rosemary Jones provided the donation, which the Harrisonburg public university announced in late November. A 1954 physics and math alumnus of what was then Madison College, Stan worked for McLean-based Mitre as an engineer for five decades, specializing in antennae design and development. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Delaware. Rosemary is a retired associate real estate broker.
“We certainly care about libraries, and we both use our library here in Alexandria,” Rosemary Jones said in a Madison magazine feature.
The couple previously committed $1.3 million to JMU in 2019 for scholarships for first-generation Honors College students in the university’s College of Science and Mathematics and the College of Integrated Science and Engineering. In March 2019, Jones received JMU’s College of Science and Mathematics Alumni Achievement Award at the JMU Alumni Association awards banquet.
Bob Kolvoord, who is JMU’s interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, as well as the former dean of its College of Integrated Science and Engineering, met the Joneses around the time of their previous donation.
“Stan is, at his heart, a systems analyst and engineer,” he said in a Madison magazine feature. “And what I’ve observed is that both of them really have an eye toward the future and wanting to help provide opportunity for students.”
JMU began renovating and expanding the Carrier Library in summer 2023 and expects to reopen it for the fall 2026 semester. The university is renovating 138,224 square feet and building 56,887 square feet; the new Stan and Rosemary Jones Wing will be more than 56,000 square feet.
A rendering of the Carrier Library’s Stan and Rosemary Jones Wing, looking southeast across Grace Street in Harrisonburg. Image courtesy James Madison University
“I think it’s a really beautiful building,” Stan Jones said in a Madison magazine feature. “That was the first thing that caught my eye.”
The expanded library will have a makerspace, media production and digitization studios and an experimental tech classroom. It will also have an anatomy room, consultation and group study rooms, a lactation space, new facilities for Special Collections and a lab for book and manuscript conservation, a café, a student kitchenette and other new rooms and features.
Founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg, JMU is a public research university with an R2 classification from the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. In the fall semester, the university had 21,112 undergraduate and 1,767 graduate students enrolled.
Averett University announced Wednesday that its board has appointed David Joyce as its 15th president. Tiffany Franks, who has served nearly 17 years as president of the Danville private university, will retire Jan. 5, 2025.
The leadership change comes following months of headlines about the school’s financial woes and cost-saving measures like staff furloughs and program cuts.
Don Aungst, who came on board as Averett’s vice president and chief financial and operating officer, in 2020, no longer works at the university. His employment ended April 1, 2024, according to Cassie Jones, Averett’s spokesperson.
In September, Averett announced that Donald Merricks, a retired bank president, former state delegate and a two-time alumnus, had stepped in as the school’s interim chief financial officer. A news release did not address why the position was empty.
Averett also hired Susan Nelson as its director of finance in October. “This reorganized position encompasses the controller functions of accounting and financial reporting, and also incorporates the strategic fiscal management of budgeting, planning, processes and controls,” Jones wrote in an e-mail.
And in November, the university decided to eliminate five undergraduate majors — art, chemistry, math, modern languages and religion — as well as the criminal justice master’s degree and the symphonic band program. One staff position at Averett is expected to be cut in January 2026 as a result of the cuts.
A news release about the newly selected president alluded to the university’s financial struggles.
“Dr. Joyce is the right leader for Averett,” Emma Maddux Kozlowski, vice chair of the school’s board of trustees, said in a statement. “He understands the urgency to put Averett back on strong financial footing and will find innovative ways to maximize operational efficiency.”
The board used Academic Search, a Washington, D.C. higher-education executive search firm, with their search.
Joyce comes to Danville with nearly three decades of experience as a college president. For eight years he led Union College in Kentucky. He spent another 10 years as president of Ripon College in Wisconsin and most recently worked for nine years as president of Brevard College in North Carolina.
Joyce holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pfeiffer University, a master of divinity in pastoral psychology from the Yale Divinity School, a master’s in psychology from North Carolina State University and a doctorate in human resource development from Vanderbilt University.
He began his career at Elon University as associate dean of student affairs, before joining Pfeiffer as college minister. Joyce is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church.
Joyce will be installed as president on January 6, 2025. A “welcoming event” will be planned for that month for Joyce and his wife Lynne, according to the announcement.
“In our search for the next president of Averett, the Board of Trustees knew that Averett needed a strong leader with a proven record of turning around a college or university that was facing headwinds,” said Dan Carlton, chair of the university’s board.
Tiffany Franks will retire as Averett’s president in January 2025. Photo courtesy Averett University
The announcement noted several achievements Averett accomplished during Franks’ tenure, including setting enrollment records, joining the Old Dominion Athletic Conference and strengthening ties with the Danville community.
“Nearly 17 years ago, she walked onto this campus and changed Averett,” Carlton said. “She has been an ambassador of Averett in the community, a champion for our students and a tireless leader of the outstanding faculty and staff assembled at Averett.”
As of September, Averett had nearly 1,450 students enrolled, a 7% increase from the previous academic year, and including 550 students enrolled in Averett Online, its virtual educational offering. In 2022, Caesars Virginia announced a gift of $504,000 to the university to establish a hospitality and tourism academic program, and the school became Danville Regional Airport’s fixed-base operator in July 2021. Averett has offered flight training since 1981.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to add information from Averett University’s spokesperson.
On the third floor of George Mason University’s new state-of-the-art Fuse tech hub, robots jumped, begged, rolled over and offered a mechanical paw to shake Friday while a small drone hovered above.
The endearing welcome by George Mason’s RobotiXX Lab robots offered a brief glimpse into the future for the group of academics and students who are developing the next generation of intelligent robots built to work on behalf of humans in challenging environments. When RobotiXX completes its move from its current home on the university’s Fairfax campus in May 2025, it will not only have a bigger, better space in which to build and demonstrate its robots, but it will also be settled among industry partners who can provide a lifeline as RobotiXX develops its technologies.
“We want to be connected with industry so that we can push these robots from our academic lab out there to the wild,” says Xuesu Xiao, RobotiXX Lab’s director and an assistant professor of computer science at George Mason.
Two years after its groundbreaking, Mason offered the first public look inside Fuse, the new, 345,000-square-foot high-tech building on its Mason Square campus in Arlington County’s Ballston-Rosslyn neighborhood, on Friday, announcing its commercial launch as industry partners begin to move into the space in coming months.
Classes at Fuse, which will include undergraduate and graduate-level students, are expected to begin in the fall 2025 semester. Research within Fuse is expected to begin by June 2025.
The building, a public-private partnership developed by McLean-based Edgemoor Infrastructure and Real Estate, which owns the building, will offer a mix of space for commercial businesses working in digital technologies, as well as high-tech lab, classroom, collaborative and incubator spaces and dining. The spaces are divvied up nearly into thirds, split among GMU, private businesses and collaborative and conferencing spaces, says Edgemoor Managing Director Brian Naumick.
Fuse cost a little more than $250 million to construct, with $90 million each contributed by Mason and Virginia’s Tech Talent Investment Program, as well as $78 million from Edgemoor.
Liza Wilson Durant, George Mason University’s associate provost for strategic initiatives and community engagement, speaks at the Dec. 6, 2024, grand opening of the university’s Fuse tech hub. Photo by Courtney Mabeus-Brown
Construction of Fuse is still ongoing, and commercial spaces will be outfitted as those tenants move in, says Liza Wilson Durant, George Mason associate provost for strategic initiatives and community engagement.
In October, Mason announced that the building’s first tenant, Cybastion, a cybersecurity and digital IT company focused on emerging markets, would move into Fuse in spring 2025. About 75% of the commercial space has been committed, but officials declined to give a list of tenants or say how many companies are part of the initial slate, citing future announcements.
“Imagine how exciting it’s going to be for our students to come into the building in the fall and be able to walk past corridors with industry names where they’re going to want to work, and to have opportunities for internships and capstone projects, and even just shadow someone for the day,” Wilson Durant said during her keynote remarks Friday.
Fuse is opening as the region looks to become a tech stronghold and as GMU’s reputation as a research university grows nationally. Fuse is being viewed as a catalyst to spark more of that growth as well as an economic development driver for Arlington’s Ballston-Rosslyn sections, including as a source for building a greater tech worker pipeline.
Ryan Touhill, the county’s economic development director and a 2006 graduate of GMU, said in opening remarks that Arlington’s newest economic development strategy focuses on tech. “We’re going all in on the tech economy,” Touhill said.
Wilson Durant says several of Fuse’s new tenants are companies that have worked with the university as partners previously, adding that bringing academia and industry together into a collaborative space to work on a joint proposal on a project for a federal government agency, like the U.S. Department of Defense, might help accelerate the work.
“An academic environment, it fuels exchange of information and knowledge,” she says. “It’s less about selling a product and more about innovating and advancing the knowledge body. That’s a very attractive ecosystem for industry to be part of. It’s different.”
Scott C. Beardsley, dean of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, has been reappointed to his third term as dean, which starts Aug. 1, 2025, and extends through August 2029, U.Va. announced Wednesday.
Named dean in 2015, Beardsley is now the university’s longest serving current dean and has raised more than $610 million for the school over the past decade, as well as opening a satellite campus in Arlington County; hiring more than 60 faculty members; hitting application and enrollment records among women, military veterans, underrepresented minorities, international and first-generation students; and launching the $150 million student housing project on the business school’s grounds. During his tenure, Darden also has been named the top public MBA program in Bloomberg Businessweek (2022-24) and Poets & Quants (2023 and 2024). Beardsley was named U.Va.’s Dean of the Year in 2020.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue to work with the incredible community of the Darden School of Business in pursuing our mission to improve the world by developing responsible leaders, and to my wife Claire, and family who have been critical to any success I’ve had,” Beardsley said in a statement. “I am invigorated to continue pursuing progress with all of our stakeholders to ensure that Darden cements its position as one of the best places to learn, teach, research and work in higher education. In a world in which responsible leadership remains at a premium, Darden can be a beacon of hope as we inspire and develop the leaders of today and the future.”
Beardsley added that his focus over the next five years will be on marking the Darden School’s 75th anniversary in 2030, as well as increasing scholarship funding and accessibility, and shepherding the school’s facilities master plan to completion.
Also the Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business, Beardsley holds a degree in electrical engineering from Tufts University, an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania. Beardsley worked for McKinsey & Co. for 26 years in New York City and in Brussels, Belgium. As of this year, he is finishing a part-time master’s in practical ethics at the University of Oxford’s Pembroke College.
The country’s aging, overwhelmed electrical grid. Threats of cyberattacks. The explosion of interest in — and confusion about — artificial intelligence.
These real-life problems don’t know boundaries. Neither should the search for solutions, says Azim Eskandarian, dean of Virginia Commonwealth University’s College of Engineering.
Cross-disciplinary learning is the way of the future and VCU’s engineering school is setting itself up to be that kind of learning institution, says Eskandarian, who advocates for what he calls “engineering without boundaries.”
In a move to break down walls between disciplines and qualify students for high-demand jobs, the college has added six new minors for undergraduates: artificial intelligence, aerospace engineering, nuclear engineering, software engineering, cybersecurity, and data science. These minors became available at the beginning of the 2024-25 academic year.
What makes the addition of these minors so valuable is that engineering “has become a more interdisciplinary field that requires at least a basic understanding of principles from a variety of industries,” says John R. Harrell, Dominion Energy’s director of nuclear engineering and fuel department.
Richmond-based Dominion, which runs four nuclear reactors in Surry and Louisa counties and is taking steps toward potentially developing a small nuclear modular reactor at the North Anna Power Station, relies on VCU engineering graduates to fill a wide range of positions, including mechanical design engineer, electric transmission engineer, nuclear core design engineer and nuclear spent fuels engineer.
“Knowledge of nuclear power generation could be beneficial to an electrical engineer working on the power grid. A deeper understanding of nuclear energy can enable them to find better and more efficient solutions for Dominion Energy,” says Harrell, a member of VCU’s nuclear engineering advisory board.
Having expertise in more than one engineering discipline allows new hires “to rotate between roles on a team that might have been unavailable to a specialist,” he adds.
The engineering college teaches nearly 2,000 undergraduate students and approximately 300 graduate students who are pursuing degrees in everything from biomedical engineering through nuclear engineering.
In addition to the new minor focuses, the college has six new master’s concentrations in aerospace engineering, engineering management, environmental and sustainable engineering, rehabilitation engineering, systems engineering, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine.
Eskandarian describes VCU’s engineering curriculum as focused and unusual. “We don’t have programs in industrial or civil engineering — we don’t have that traditional type of program.”
“Every graduate of VCU should have a chance to get educated in data science and AI,” says Preetam Ghosh, interim chair of VCU’s Department of Computer Science. Photo courtesy Virginia Commonwealth University
Nuclear option
The new nuclear engineering minor helps VCU address the ever-expanding need for education relating to nuclear power reactors, shipbuilding and medical isotopes, according to John Speich, interim chair and professor of VCU’s Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering.
The demand for sustainable energy has spurred interest in small modular reactors (SMRs), which have a lower initial capital investment, greater scalability and a smaller physical footprint than traditional reactors, allowing them to be built closer to the grid.
In July, Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a bill aimed at accelerating the deployment of SMRs in Virginia. Dominion Energy followed up with requests for proposals to study the feasibility of an SMR at North Anna. In October, Dominion Energy Virginia signed an agreement with Amazon.com to explore potential development of SMRs, with Amazon helping finance the move.
Only two SMRs are currently in operation worldwide, officials note, and Virginia likely wouldn’t have its own small reactor until at least the mid-2030s.
The new minor, says Supathorn Phongikaroon, engineering foundation professor and director of nuclear engineering programs at VCU, will help expand the pool of scientific talent available in Virginia. “We want … to involve and include people who often think this is an extremely difficult area” and shy away from it, he says.
For example, he says, students majoring in electrical engineering could add the minor to enable them to better explore possible nuclear-power solutions to the U.S.’s growing demand for energy, largely attributed to expanding digital use and data center growth.
Five or six students are already taking the nuclear engineering minor. The intro class typically has about 30 students, but about 40 are enrolled this fall, Phongikaroon says.
VCU offers students a wealth of opportunities to research various aspects of nuclear power. Its Nuclear Reactor Simulator Laboratory is home to the GSE Solutions GPWR (Generic Pressurized Water Reactor) nuclear reactor simulator, which mimics the behavior of a nuclear reactor like those at Dominion’s power stations that heat water to create steam and drive an electric generator.
This gives students hands-on experience with nuclear plants’ operations and lets them learn how to handle unanticipated events.
“It can simulate an entire power plant,” Eskandarian says, which allows researchers to study a range of issues, including sustainability and potential safety hazards.
VCU also is involved in research at the Center of Operational Excellence for Nuclear Products and Services in Lynchburg and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The university’s work has been honored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency, among others.
The nuclear engineering minor also is valuable in the nuclear Navy and the shipbuilding industry, Speich says.
Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, is one of two primary designers and builders of nuclear-powered submarines for the U.S. Navy. And it is currently building the Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the first new aircraft carrier design in decades.
VCU has many nuclear and mechanical engineering alumni at Newport News Shipbuilding, as well as other big employers like nuclear fuel maker BWX Technologies and nuclear reactor builder Framatome in Lynchburg, Speich notes, and “we have representatives from these companies on our advisory boards.”
Other options are in the study of medical isotopes, an essential part of radiopharmaceuticals that are used to detect diagnosis and treat cardiovascular diseases and cancer, according to Phongikaroon.
In 2023, the Energy Department awarded a VCU-led team a $5 million grant to develop a more efficient method of isotope production, and researchers from VCU, Virginia State University and Virginia Union University are forming a consortium with the Oak Ridge laboratory to train 70 undergraduate and graduate students in all aspects of isotope production.
The next frontier
Nuclear energy isn’t the only hot area of research. VCU engineering master’s students have the option for a concentration in aerospace engineering, which prompted the idea of offering a minor to undergraduates.
The demand for education in the field certainly has been strong, according to Speich. “When we have open houses, people ask if we have aerospace.” VCU students are active in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics professional society and in RAM Rocketry, which provides experience in the field of rocketry and aerospace design through student rocketry competitions.
The minor will be useful to engineering students seeking jobs related to the design, manufacture and testing of airplanes, helicopters, drones, rockets, spacecraft or satellites, Speich says. So far, “we have at least a dozen in this minor,” he says. One student who had already begun taking electives, “will be graduating in December.”
Having already offered aerospace courses, VCU can cite an impressive list of employers its engineering grads have gone on to, including NASA, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Artificial intelligence is also another popular area of study, Eskandarian says — “perhaps the hottest topic now. It’s on the news all the time.”
This new minor covers the essentials of AI technology, with a selection of courses that delve into topics such as machine learning, natural language processing and the ethical considerations of AI.
According to a survey of 300 U.S. and U.K. organizations conducted by Gartner, a technology research and consulting firm, 56% of software engineering leaders rated AI/machine learning engineer as the most in-demand role for 2024, as well as the biggest skills gap.
While perhaps not quite as red-hot as AI is currently, VCU’s minors in data science, cybersecurity and software engineering are also promising fields for future employment.
All types of businesses want employees who know how to handle data, says Eskandarian, and the data science minor is primarily for students majoring in computer science and mathematical sciences with a concentration in statistics.
This interdisciplinary field combines expertise in statistics, computer science and domain-specific knowledge to extract insights and knowledge from data, according to Preetam Ghosh, a professor and interim chair for the engineering college’s Department of Computer Science.
Ghosh’s department is the largest in the college, offering courses on AI, cybersecurity, high-performance data mining and machine learning, among other fields. Data science is used in all of them, Ghosh says. “Every graduate of VCU should have a chance to get educated in data science and AI. Every job needs some type of data and AI, even arts majors.”
As for the cybersecurity minor, it’s open to non-computer science majors and gives them valuable troubleshooting skills that let them identify hacking weaknesses and correct problems. The student may not be qualified to create a cyber defense product, Ghosh says, but “it covers the basics” such as blockchain technology, a method of recording information that makes it difficult for the system to be hacked or manipulated.
As for software engineering, Ghosh says it’s a mainstay for the IT industry, where “the demand is more than the supply. These are good jobs with security.”
The minor is meant to provide students with an understanding of software life cycles; architecture and design patterns; agile software development; and maintenance and testing methodologies. Students also learn about how to collaborate in large software development teams.
Many software jobs don’t need to be filled by someone who has majored in the field, Ghosh adds. It could be an art student or a marketing major. “We’re creating new pathways for students from different backgrounds. We’ve democratized software engineering.”
Eskandarian sees all of these new minors as critical to meeting the needs of students and companies in Virginia. “We want to produce student leader engineers that are serving the market.”
VCU at a glance
Founded
Virginia Commonwealth University was founded in 1838 as the Medical College of Hampden-Sydney and was later renamed the Medical College of Virginia. In 1968, MCV merged with Richmond Professional Institute to form VCU.
Campus
VCU has two campuses in downtown Richmond covering a total of 198 acres. The Monroe Park Campus houses most undergraduate students and classes. VCU’s five health sciences schools, the College of Health Professions, VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center and VCU Health are located on the MCV campus.
Full-time faculty: 2,457
Full-time university and academic professionals: 3,675
Tuition and fees
In-state tuition and fees: $16,720**
Tuition and fees (out of state): $39,884**
Room and board and other fees: $14,268***
Average financial aid awarded to full-time freshmen seeking assistance: $20,261
* Includes VCU and VCU Health
** Based on 15 credit hours per semester and 30 credit hours for the 2024-25 year. This does not include program fees, which vary based on a student’s major.
*** Room charge is based on a double occupancy in Rhoads Hall, and the dining rate is for the 200 swipes with $225 dining dollars meal plan for the 2024-25 year.
What I enjoy about my career: There is nothing better than being there to witness students have a “light bulb moment” or land their dream first job.
Most interesting place I’ve traveled: Bhutan. Their commitment to Gross National Happiness is fascinating and instructive.
My thoughts on artificial intelligence: AI is coming either for our jobs OR how we do our jobs. But with it will come new jobs, new efficiencies and new opportunities. Yes, there are ethical challenges, but that shouldn’t stop us from embracing and harnessing the future.
Do I leave work at work after I finish the workday? Universities have students on campus 24/7, so there is no true “end of workday.” But I work with an amazing team of leaders, and we trade off being “on” so that everyone gets time to unplug and recharge.
Did you know? Shenandoah University and the U.S. Department of the Treasury hosted a small business summit in September at the university’s new Hub for Innovators, Veterans and Entrepreneurs (HIVE), a “technology hub and innovation accelerator designed to serve as a catalyst for economic development in the Northern Shenandoah Valley.”
The University of Virginia’s College at Wise has received its largest ever donation, $11.2 million, from The Bill Gatton Foundation, the Wise County college announced Monday.
The late Carol Martin “Bill” Gatton, a successful businessman who owned the Gatton Automotive Group with dealerships in Kentucky and Tennessee, made significant gifts to the University of Kentucky and East Tennessee State University during his lifetime, and after his 2022 death, his Bristol-based foundation has made further donations, including $2 million to Emory & Henry University in 2023.
According to U.Va. Wise’s announcement, the foundation’s donation will create six endowed funds and support:
The Chancellor’s Greatest Needs Fund, which includes the naming of a hospitality suite and seating box at the David J. Prior Center, which hosts sporting events and concerts;
Naming of the Bill Gatton Department of Nursing;
Naming of the Bill Gatton Department of Technology Management and Data Analytics, and construction of the department’s new building;
Creation of the Bill Gatton Scholars Program, with three new scholarship funds. U.Va. will match this donation with $4.5 million.
Creation of the Rachel Clay-Keohane Mathematics Fund to honor the longtime U.Va. Wise faculty member, alumna and head coach of the college’s women’s basketball team;
Support and naming of the Bill Gatton Softball Field.
“To say this gift will be transformative doesn’t really capture the monumental impact that it will have,” Donna P. Henry, U.Va. Wise’s chancellor, said in a statement. “Every future student at the college will benefit from this gift.”
With U.Va.’s scholarship matching funds, the Gatton Foundation’s gift will add $15.7 million to the school’s $166 million endowment, according to the announcement.
Todd Estes, vice president of workforce development and innovation at Virginia Peninsula Community College, says the college’s new Toano trades facility is more accessible for students. Photo by Mark Rhodes
A flat tire can mean different things to different people. Maybe it’s a postponed appointment and a call to AAA. Or maybe you have to get a ride to work from your spouse.
But for some folks, a flat tire can start a snowball effect.
“For so many, that flat tire, that’s the end, right? It means they’re missing a shift at work. If they miss a shift at work, and they’re an hourly employee, they’ve lost a day’s pay, and they still have to repair that tire. And, ‘Oh, am I going to school now, too?’ That’s how quickly it can unravel for far too many people,” says Paula Pando, president of Reynolds Community College, based in metro Richmond. “I’m going to say in our region — but I would say across the country — that they’re one life emergency from being completely derailed from fulfilling their potential.”
Meeting students where they are and helping them succeed is part of the mission behind the Virginia Community College System, which has 23 state-funded colleges with 40 campuses serving more than 200,000 students across the commonwealth.
People attend community college for many reasons, but getting certifications and training for desirable careers is a major motivation for many, especially students who are older than average college age and often juggle family and work responsibilities with their educations. Pando says the state’s community college students often are the ones who view a flat tire as a major obstacle, not just an inconvenience.
Similarly, community colleges are working with shoestring budgets, with relatively tight state funding.
Do community college students need English as a Second Language classes? Of course. Do they need remote learning classes? Sure thing. Scholarship money? Yep.
And at many of the state’s community colleges, leaders are figuring out other ways to bring learning directly to students, or at least within a bus or shuttle ride. Virginia Highlands Community College offers free bus trips to the Abingdon college from the city of Bristol and Washington and Smyth counties, while Eastern Shore Community College reimburses toll payments to students who commute via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Most other schools have agreements with local public transportation systems that allow students to ride for free or at reduced fares.
For Pando, accessibility also means offering more classes at Reynolds’ downtown Richmond campus, which is convenient to the regional bus line, and offering free shuttle service to its Parham Road campus in Henrico County.
For Virginia Peninsula Community College, which covers the region of James City County, Williamsburg, Hampton and Newport News, it means building new satellite classrooms.
“If I want to get to a program that’s only offered on one campus, or I don’t have the classes I need at my Williamsburg campus — if you had to rely on public transportation, you now have to figure out two different bus companies and what their schedules are,” says VPCC President Towuanna Porter Brannon. “If you’re traveling what for me is a 25-minute ride in my car from Newport News to Williamsburg, it could possibly [take] two hours for a student who is relying on public transportation.”
Answering student needs
To respond to these challenges, VPCC opened a trades center in Toano in 2023, offering welding and commercial driver’s license classes, which previously were only offered in Hampton, about 37 miles away.
But building new classrooms and hiring faculty, especially for specialty workforce programs, is not cheap — and community colleges can’t rely on tuition to pay for them.
At $163 per credit hour, Virginia’s community colleges offer the lowest-cost postsecondary education in the state. For most of VPCC’s students, tuition is affordable, Brannon notes, but transportation has been a big roadblock for some students when classes are offered in only one location, especially for hands-on skills training classes.
“The individuals in [the Toano] part of our service region, it’s just probably impossible for them to train at our Hampton campus,” explains Todd Estes, VPCC’s vice president of workforce development and innovation. “We were able to open that facility and offer four different trades training courses in 2023 with the help of a U.S. [Department of Labor] grant, and we also are in the process of opening another facility in southeast Newport News, which is the other end of our service area, and a historically underserved community.”
Elsewhere in the state, colleges have purchased or leased older buildings to convert them into classrooms. Wytheville Community College opened WCC WEST (standing for workforce, education and skills training) in Marion, in a former auto dealership purchased by the Smyth County Economic Development Authority. And next year, Paul D. Camp Community College is set to open a new nursing and allied health facility in the former Tidewater News building in Franklin, a project funded in part by the Sentara Foundation.
In October, Danville, Southside Virginia and Patrick & Henry community colleges signed an agreement to expand building trades programs in Southern Virginia, collaborating with K-12 schools and regional business partners.
Tidewater Community College, VPCC’s neighbor to the southeast, partners with the Virginia Ship Repair Association on its maritime trades program, says Laura Hanson, associate vice president of corporate solutions at TCC. Students complete training in welding, pipefitting, marine painting and other trades in two or three weeks.
“One of our motivators at TCC … is accessibility for our students, and our current skilled trades academy is in Portsmouth,” Hanson says. “So, when you factor in tunnels, [students] have a hard time with that, especially if you’re unemployed. So, our next goal is to acquire a location in Norfolk. And then the next step, we are renovating a building on our Virginia Beach campus,” which will also host skilled training courses for maritime trades, including offshore wind.
Set to open in June 2025, VPCC’s Newport News satellite center is a response to achieve “geographic accessibility” in a community that “historically has had transportation issues,” Estes says. “That community is not as far as, say, Toano, but if you’re talking about public transportation, it’s still an hour and a half or two hours to get to our Hampton campus, which is just prohibitive for anybody in that area.”
The Newport News facility will offer training for three maritime trades and four construction trades, and its proximity to major employer Newport News Shipbuilding will be a big benefit to students, Estes says. “So, that community will have that direct connection of training within their community, and then employment less than a mile away.”
Newport News Shipbuilding is one of multiple large employers with big expansion plans in Virginia, hoping to hire 19,000 people over the next decade for its nuclear shipbuilding workforce. And that’s just one work sector. Across the state, businesses and other institutions need to fill vacancies in health care, vehicle repair, teaching and child care, as well as in the growing industries of renewable energy, cybersecurity and manufacturing, among other fields. Many employers and state officials are looking to community colleges to train the next generation of these employees.
A heavy responsibility
The community college system is tasked with a large segment of the state’s workforce development strategy. The Virginia Talent Accelerator Program, a collaboration between VCCS and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, trains workers for specific job duties at no cost to businesses relocating or expanding in Virginia.
Additionally, the community colleges’ FastForward and G3 programs, created in the past decade, are specifically geared toward people training for in-demand careers, and some courses take less than a month to complete. According to the college system, more than 53,000 students have completed FastForward programs, seeing average wage increases of more than $11,000 within 12 months of receiving their new credentials.
Total enrollment in Virginia’s community colleges has grown for six consecutive semesters, after about 10 years of declining enrollment. Approximately 230,000 students enrolled in 2024.
The state has nearly 250,000 unfilled jobs, according to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration, and a big reason is a dearth of relevant job skills among Virginians. In a February op-ed published by Cardinal News, VCCS Chancellor David Doré and Virginia Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Barry DuVal noted that 3.2 million Virginians lack postsecondary credentials that would qualify some of them for open jobs.
Community college students, many of whom stay in their communities after completion, are often a good fit for these jobs, but Doré and DuVal note that for every dollar spent on students at four-year public universities in Virginia, the state invests only 57 cents per community college student, which impacts how many classes community colleges can offer and leaves institutions pursuing outside funding.
The community college system, Doré says, plans to ask for $90 million in one-time funding from the state for the 2025 fiscal year, going toward facility improvements, equipment and program startup costs. VCCS also expects to request an additional $46.2 million in recurring state funding, which would go toward hiring additional faculty and support staff, as well as other costs associated with expanding educational programs.
Additionally, VCCS is asking the state to increase its investment in nondegree program FastForward by $32.5 million, Doré says. He also hopes legislators will change the funding mechanism in Virginia so that the state automatically allocates more money for higher-cost workforce programs that train in-demand professionals such as nurses, dental hygienists, welders and mechanics.
In the meantime, private and public sector partners are a crucial funding source for new projects and expansions.
“I would love to get more funding, but I can just say that I’m really very impressed by how entrepreneurial our presidents are,” Doré says. “Our presidents are really looking for every opportunity to get investment to build these workforce centers, but … it’s my hope that we’re going to make our case to the General Assembly to get funding for these programs.”
Reynolds Community College now offers HVAC and other skilled trades classes at its downtown Richmond campus, which is on the city’s bus line. Photo courtesy Reynolds Community College
‘Rob Peter to pay Paul’
As Pando and Brannon note, to fill the state’s open jobs, community college students need training courses available and accessible to them, and that’s not always easy, especially when its costs a lot more to build a welding training workshop than a traditional classroom.
“When we start talking about needing to triple the number of welders, OK, that welding job — that’s a million-dollar lab,” Pando explains. “Finding a welding instructor who is going to take a pay cut to come teach welding is another challenge, and that story is replicated in virtually all of our programs — HVAC instruction, health care programs, our automotive program.”
Asked how her college affords new high-tech facilities, Brannon replies with a laugh, “Begging,” as well as applying for “tons of grants.”
In Virginia, “there’s not a lot of infusion of state funds that help us buy new equipment … to stay competitive with what someone may be experiencing in the workplace,” Brannon adds. “And so, a lot of the ways that we have been getting funding is to ask [for donations] from our local businesses — people who are actually interested in hiring, who have a high demand for those positions.”
Ultimately, Pando says, “the way we do it is through aggressive fundraising. I mean, we’re constantly hat in hand. I had to raise money and do a song and dance and rob Peter to pay Paul to build our automotive tech building, which is modest but beautiful.”
Reynolds has partnered with Richmond city government, Loyalty Toyota and VCU Health, among other institutions, to staff and fund workforce training programs to produce auto mechanics, nurses and truck drivers. The community college’s automotive program includes a specialty master technician course for Toyotas and Lexuses, and students work at Loyalty Toyota service centers around the Richmond area, earning wages while learning on the job.
“Then the other three days are in lab with us,” Pando says, “and those students are pretty much guaranteed a job interview because they’ve been [essentially] interviewing for a few years. It’s an excellent example of an earn-and-learn program that keeps students from having to work a job at McDonald’s.”
Similarly, VPCC has received funding from Newport News Shipbuilding and other partners to help them hire and retain more faculty members, as well as advising the college on what skills employers need.
“I don’t believe we’ve gotten a generous donation from a donor in a while. We’ve been really lucky to have a community of business partners to support us, but we’re all dealing with a very similar, small profit margin,” Brannon says. “So, a lot of what we’ve been doing is trying to advocate at the state level for some sort of parity and funding when it comes to these high-cost programs.”
Freelance writer Courtney Mabeus-Brown contributed to this article.
At A Glance: Virginia Community College System
Founded
The Virginia Technical College System started in 1964 with two schools: Roanoke Technical College and Northern Virginia Technical College. In 1966, it was renamed the Virginia Community College System, and by 1972, it had expanded to all 23 community colleges in existence today. In 1987, the system began offering dual enrollment courses, allowing high school students to earn college credits at community colleges, and in 1996, the system launched online classes. In 2016, the General Assembly created the nation’s first short-term, pay-for-performance workforce training program, now known as FastForward. Today, VCCS has 40 campuses across the state, with approximately 230,000 students enrolled in 2024.
Enrollment*
Total enrollment: 207,108
Full-time students: 89,338
Student profile**
Male: 42%
Female: 56%
Unknown: 2%
Students of color: 47%
Academic programs
VCCS offers hundreds of programs of study at its 23 colleges statewide. They include two-year associate degrees, one-year certificates and career studies certificates. Some programs offer college credits that are transferrable to four-year colleges and universities, and others offer noncredit programs geared toward training for specific careers, including welding, auto mechanics and HVAC technology.
About 45,000 union dockworkers walked off the job at every major port along the East and Gulf coasts until they ended the strike after reaching a tentative deal three days later. (Oct. 1)
However, state watchdog JLARC said Radford University, Virginia State University and the University of Mary Washington were not in imminent danger of closing. (Oct. 8)
The subsidiary of Norway’s Kongsberg Group plans to establish its first U.S. defense assembly plant in James City County, creating an estimated 180 jobs. (Sept. 17)
The University of Virginia on Friday dedicated the Ramon W. Breeden Jr. Commerce Grounds plaza and officially named “Breeden Way,” located adjacent to the McIntire School of Commerce.
The honor is in recognition of Breeden’s legacy as founder and chair of Virginia Beach-based real estate company The Breeden Co., as well as his philanthropy to U.Va., his alma matter, according to a media advisory.
In September 2023, U.Va. announced Breeden, a 1956 McIntire graduate, had given $50 million to support business education and athletics. The gift was divided between the university’s McIntire Expansion Project, a renovation and expansion of U.Va’s commerce school, and the Virginia Athletics Master Plan.
“The McIntire School broadened my education and gave me confidence in myself. I have many friends who attended Ivy League schools, and I can stand toe to toe with them in business, as I got just as good an education and, in some cases, better,” Breeden said in an interview with Virginia Business earlier this year. “McIntire taught me not to give up and to keep pushing on in life.”
The McIntire expansion includes construction of a new building, Shumway Hall, on the southeast corner of U.Va’s lawn as well as a renovated Cobb Hall and a host of outdoor meeting areas, expanded walkways and green spaces.
The athletics plan calls for a new athletics complex, including a 90,000-square-foot home for U.Va’s football program, an Olympic sports center to support to more than 750 student-athletes and the Center for Citizen Leaders and Sports Ethics. Cavaliers celebrated the opening of the 93,000 square-foot football operations center facility opened on June
Breeden, who founded the real estate development company in 1961, served as a member of the McIntire Foundation Board from 1994 to 1996 and also served on its advisor board. In January 2022, he stepped down as president and CEO of his company, naming Timothy Faulkner his successor. Breeden also co-founded Commerce Bank, which was purchased by Branch Bank & Trust, and he then served as a state director of BB&T, now part of Truist Financial Group.
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