The Fall Meeting of the Virginia Wesleyan College Board of Trustees was held on campus this past Wednesday, October 19.
Steve
Sproles from Derck & Edson presented the Board with an overview of
the Campus Master Plan, which is expected to be completed by February
2017. The final product will include a space-utilization study, parking
study, facilities condition assessment plan, and a Campus Master Plan
for the next 10 years.
Among the progress reports given were
strategies and outlook for growing our enrollment; compliance with the
Fair Labor Standards Act; the FY 2016 audit and the FY 2017 budget; the
addition of men’s and women’s swimming and women’s golf to our NCAA
Division III lineup; preparations for the upcoming re-affiliation visit
by the University Senate of the United Methodist Church; construction of
the Greer Environmental Sciences Center and the YMCA Partnership
Building; and plans for the Susan S. Goode Fine and Performing Arts
Center, a new track, and the Oxford Village housing development across
Wesleyan Drive.
The Board heard reports and approved actions from
the Committee on Trusteeship as well as the Committees of Academic
Affairs, Administration and Finance, Advancement, Enrollment, and
Student Affairs.
Dr. Tim O’Rourke and I had the honor of
announcing during lunch the Virginia Foundation for Independent
Colleges’ 2016 H. Hiter Harris, Jr. Excellence in Instructional
Technology Award recipient, Dr. Thomas Brown, VWC Associate Professor of
Sociology and Criminal Justice. Dr. Brown is the second VWC faculty
member to win a VFIC award and the inaugural recipient of the Harris
Award. We are extremely proud of his outstanding accomplishment and the
prestigious recognition it brings to Virginia Wesleyan College. He will
be recognized at a luncheon in Richmond in November.
Also over
lunch the Board heard a special presentation, “Saving China’s Cultural
Heritage—Balancing the Goals of Preservation and Development at Wutai
Shan and the Yungang Grottoes,” by Dr. Steven Emmanuel, Professor of
Philosophy, Dr. John Wang, Professor of Computer Science, and VWC
students Brian Hanna-Sauro ’17, Nich Hipple ’17, Victoria Laughlin ’17,
and Alana Peters ’18. These presenters were among a group selected to
travel to China this summer to help preserve religious heritage sites as
part of the ASIANetwork Freeman Student-Faculty Fellows Program.
The
meeting was very productive, and I was proud to bring our biggest
supporters up to speed on Virginia Wesleyan’s new initiatives and
forward momentum. The Winter Meeting of the Board of Trustees is
scheduled for February.
