THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 19, 1995 TAG: 9504190001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Virginia Wesleyan College, which straddles the Norfolk-Virginia Beach line, is young and small but its ambition is large.
The privately funded college aspires not to become a megainstitution; a formidable university with a host of graduate schools and throngs of students.
Instead, United Methodist Church-affiliated Virginia Wesleyan aspires to become a small masterpiece of higher education; a coeducational and primarily residential liberal-arts college of the first rank; a school preparing students for productive lives beyond the campus - preparing them not only in classroom and library and on the playing field but also through community service and constructive interaction with their teachers and one another.
This is an audacious vision, given the massive endowments and storied achievements - usually gained over more than a century - of the prestigious small liberal-arts colleges in America. Substantial, if not heroic, human investment is required if Virginia Wesleyan is to realize its vision.
Substantial financial investment is what the college seeks now. It has set out to raise $25 million for facilities, endowments, scholarships and professorships, research and teaching technology and science equipment. The $25 million objective is the most daunting in Virginia Wesleyan's brief history. But that history encourages confidence that the $25 million objective - the school's biggest yet - is attainable.
Virginia Wesleyan was chartered in 1961. Seventy-five students formed the first class. Faculty numbered 20. Facilities consisted of an ``academic village'' and a fine-arts building on 300 acres. The operating budget that first year: $250,000.
Today Virginia Wesleyan counts 5,343 alumni. Current enrollment is 1,560 - about all the college says it will ever want. The students hail from 31 states and 22 countries. Student-faculty ratio is 17:1 (compared with roughly 3:1 in the beginning).
So solidly is Virginia Wesleyan established, so tightly is it woven into the colorful fabric of Hampton Roads, so lively and varied are its programs, so committed is it to community service, some may be surprised that it hasn't been around a long time.
And so dedicated to excellence are its administration, faculty and champions - a growing flock, these - that Virginia Wesleyan's striving to become one of the best small liberal-arts colleges in America appears not quixotic but destined for success.
Daniel Webster said of Dartmouth in the 19th century, ``It is, sir, as I have said, a small college, but there are those who love it.'' The affection that Virginia Wesleyan has won since students first entered its classrooms is infectious. The college's value to those it teaches and to Hampton Roads is incalculable. Its quest for millions merits a generous response. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
by CNB