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Two recent blaring headlines have underscored what many have been saying for several years now: Roanoke is becoming a center for higher education.
No, the Star City does not house a major university, and research is limited. It is not home to 25,000 infrastructure-straining students, and higher education’s economic impact does not yet run into the high nine figures.
But the growth is undeniable, the energy high, the intercollegiate cooperation unprecedented and the national recognition growing.
Dr. Cynda Johnson, president and founding dean of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, arrived in Roanoke eight years ago and since then growth “has exceeded expectations. We have had more success more quickly than I expected.” Johnson speaks in an excited, rapid-fire staccato, her energy flowing fast and furious when she says, “It has developed at rocket speed. We were able to do what no other new medical school in the country can do.”
The college recently announced spectacular planned growth: A new $67 million building, doubling the size of the VTC Research Institute, as well as Tech’s investment of $100 million in health sciences and technology in the next eight years. Tech will move its biomedical engineering and neuroscience programs to Roanoke and in five years, 500 to 1,000 students, faculty and scientists will work at the Riverside campus.
Meanwhile, the Virginia Community College system, which turns 50 years old this year, plans to locate its central administrative services—the back office for 23 colleges on 40 campuses—in Daleville at the former nTelos building. The result will be 200 new jobs in time, and $9,200 a month in rent to Botetourt County. No students will be educated at the center, but the center represents an important educational component and a virtual clinic in efficiency for education and business. (See sidebar.)
Educational opportunities abound in the Roanoke Valley for high school grads, workers seeking to improve skills, older people wanting to re-invent themselves and even for high school students wishing to get a jump on college by taking courses early. There are specific courses designed for businesses leaning on new machinery or technology, two-year curricula that save students with a goal of a bachelor’s or master’s degree a lot of money. The possibilities are nearly endless, where only a few years ago they were limited.
The Roanoke Valley has two four-year liberal arts colleges. There are two business colleges, a medical school and research institute. The Higher Education Center houses 16 colleges and universities. The Gill Memorial Hospital is becoming a business accelerator, which could easily be considered an educational institution. Jefferson College is a first-class medical education center. There is a culinary education center, affiliated with VWCC. And these institutions often work together to squeeze out every bit of value they contain for the students.
Look a little further afield and you see Virginia Tech—a huge player in Roanoke’s educational growth—plus Radford and Washington & Lee universities, VMI, Liberty, Lynchburg College, Sweet Briar, four other community colleges and lesser institutions that create educational mass and value.
Virginia Western Community College, the largest physical plant among the state’s community college campuses and the fifth-largest in enrollment (12,500 students), was long considered a mere extension of high school. It has become a star performer in the new dynamic. Community colleges in general—half a century old in Virginia, with VWCC being one of the first two in 1966 (Northern Virginia CC the other)—are increasingly important players in the education system.
As if to emphasize the importance of VWCC to the Roanoke Valley’s educational system, Dr. Charles Steger, the retired Virginia Tech president largely responsible (with Dr. Ed Murphy) for Virginia Tech-Carilion, is the chairman of the Virginia Western Community College Foundation.
Nearly 177,000 community college students were enrolled in degree programs in the Commonwealth’s community colleges last fall and another 70,000 were in workforce training or non-credit programs. Fifty years ago when Gov. Mills Godwin talked the General Assembly into applying a sales tax for education, the two new colleges had 7,500 students. High school students were able to earn credits in 1987 and classes went online in 1996. In 2004, the community colleges linked with four-year institutions (Virginia Tech was first) for guaranteed admissions.
Earlier this year, the General Assembly approved up to $3,000 in grants to help students pay for workforce training. The goal at this point is to triple the number of academic and workforce credentials by 2021—five years hence. That response recognizes the growing demand for high skilled jobs in the Commonwealth. The system now has 400,000 students, a credentialed-society recognition in sheer numbers. Virginia will need to fill 1.5 million jobs in the next 10 years and most of them will need some type of degree, certification or license. By 2017, fall admissions in the system are expected to increase from 110,000 to 117,000 students.
The system will study middle-skill-level jobs during the next six years, forming a strategic plan to meet the needs.
One of the more important elements in the new VWCC is that it has become fully STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) focused and has added an H to STEM for its emphasis on health care.
“The implication,” says President Robert Sandel, “is that’s where the better paying jobs are.” Eighty-five percent of VWCC’s graduates remain in this region, Sandel says.
For a number of years, VWCC has been especially attuned to the needs of individual businesses and manufacturers, creating programs and curricula to respond to their needs. Large manufacturing companies “Eldor and Deschutes both told us they located here at least partly because of our megatronics manufacturing program,” says Sandel. Eldor brings 350 jobs and Deschutes brings 100 jobs. The investment between them will eventually be $160 million.
Meanwhile, Virginia Western has taken over as the operator of the business accelerator at the old Gill Memorial Hospital facility in Roanoke. “It represents the next level for startups,” says Sandel, a sort of incubator for businesses that have gone beyond their first chapters. Roanoke bought the building from Carilion, invested $625,000 and brought in Virginia Western to run the programs. It will work with three to five businesses at a time, says Sandel.
The next step “will be workforce customization programs. The college will work with Roanoke Botetourt Technology Council to determine” targets and get the program going.
Sandel says VWCC has “become the national model for the Community College Access Program (CCAP), which has at its center free tuition for high school students from this area. Virginia Western and Roanoke Valley governments provide the funding for graduates with at least a 2.5 GPA. Business and industry have been strongly behind the program, says Sandel, providing much of the funding, as they have with other programs.
The evolution of VWCC from its beginnings as something beyond high school, but short of college has been impressive, especially in the area of workforce development. Because VWCC has working relationships with four-year colleges and universities, it is now sought out by students wanting a four-year education and looking for a way to accomplish the savings. Most of VWCC’s engineering graduates with a healthy GPA qualify for Virginia Tech’s engineering school, which is impressively difficult to get into. “This is a side door for some students,” says Sandel.
“Students are looking at us differently now,” says Sandel. VWCC does not have campus dorms, but it recently built a student life building, giving it more of a feel of college (“Most community colleges don’t have one,” says Sandel) and “students want to be here now.” Virginia Western has become many more students’ first college choice, he insists.
The average age of a VWCC student, 29 just a few years ago, has now “dropped to 25 or 26,” says Sandel. “We are very economical and don’t burden students with debt.” Virginia Tech, Hollins University and Roanoke College “get the largest number of transfers from us,” says Sandel.
While VWCC is exemplary in the educational development in the Roanoke Valley, “all the entities have worked together,” says Sandel. “We’ve worked hard to build relationships” with the other educational facilities.
Higher Education Center Director Tom McKeon’s son graduated at VWCC, then went to Virginia Commonwealth University. He had initially envisioned going into engineering and transferring to Tech, but changed his mind and his major.
Hollins University and Roanoke College, four-year liberal arts institutions, have been steady contributors since the 19th Century. Each draws the bulk of its students from outside the Roanoke Valley—many of them from far outside.
Says Nancy Gray, Hollins’ president: “The long-standing contributions of Hollins University and Roanoke College, both of which will be celebrating their 175th anniversaries next year, bolster the argument that Roanoke is indeed a college town. But, when you also factor in Virginia Tech’s increased presence, the impressive opportunities available at Jefferson College of Health Sciences and Virginia Western Community College, the Roanoke Higher Education Center’s outreach, and now a new center for community college administration, something truly special is happening here.
“Roanoke was long recognized for the railroad and more recently as a banking center and as a hub for excellence in healthcare, but now it may be quality higher education,” says Gray. “Our institutions of higher learning are essential components of our community’s educational and cultural life, and they play a key role in local economic development.”
Roanoke College President Mike Maxey augments Gray’s views: “By building many blocks, we have become a medical and educational community. Great scientists, researchers, medical practitioners, professors, and students are woven into the fabric of our community. The presence of medical and educational organizations makes our area vibrant.”
Roanoke has a program specifically designed for the Valley’s mid-level business professionals and Hollins’ Horizon program is for “non-traditional students,” generally women who didn’t finish their educations and want to return—at a significant reduction in cost.
Dr. Cynda Johnson, president and founding dean of the Virginia Tech-Carilion School of Medicine, is enthusiastic to the point of bubbling over when talking about what has been accomplished and what’s coming.
Johnson, who is on the President’s Advisory Board at Hollins, says, “We make an effort to partner” with the Valley’s other colleges and universities. The link with Jefferson College of Health Sciences “is the most robust,” says Johnson. “We teach and learn together and we have done that from the beginning” of VT-C. Students are involved in community services projects together, as well.
In two years, the schools will share a state-of-the-art anatomy lab and Radford University will become a player in that.
Much of the collaboration has to do with efficiency, cost, student debt, says Johnson. “We are sensitive to that.” She says VT-C has had “more success more quickly than we expected.”
VT-C is, she emphasizes, “rocketing and rolling. It is exciting for me.”
Carilion President/CEO Nancy Agee: “For years, I have said that my professional passions are clinical excellence and higher ed. We are blessed to have regional strength in both. Now those strengths are becoming robust drivers for our region’s continued success. The evolving Virginia Tech and Carilion partnership is a great example of what the future will bring. The region is becoming nationally known for our clinical expertise and our institutes of higher learning. I think that is only going to grow.”
American National University, which has 3,000 students on 30 campuses in six states, opened in Roanoke in 1886 and is now based in Salem at a former elementary school. It offers degrees and certificates in business curricula all the way to an MBA and is expanding overseas. It and ECPI are the business schools in the Valley.
President Frank Longacre says ANU is looking to be ahead of the next iteration of the educational delivery system. “You have to move pretty quickly” to stay at the front, he says. “We have been adaptable, like any institution.” All the institutions in the Roanoke Valley “have leveraged their strong suits. There is not a lot of overlap” in their offerings.
“Two thousand sixteen marks American National University’s 130th year, and for me, my 44th year in higher education—and we have certainly seen much evolution in higher education here in the Roanoke Valley. We have evolved from serving the needs of the business community of the American industrial age to the broadest needs of the global economy in health science and information technology as well as in business.
While the new community college back office is scheduled for Botetourt County, “Roanoke is the headquarters of the university administration for ANU,” says Longacre. “We pioneered the centralized approach to administration 30 years ago, and this has served us well. … We’ve also integrated online and live videoconferencing options into our brick-and-mortar campuses, allowing students to utilize a variety of delivery formats in order to get the course they need at the time they need it.”
McKeon of the Higher Education Center in downtown Roanoke, which has graduated 8,500 students from its 16 member institutions since it was opened, says “most of our graduates stay” in the Roanoke Valley. The Higher Ed Center is interesting in that it provides educational opportunities as varied in draw as those looking to take a class for entertainment to those wanting an advanced degree. It is close, relatively inexpensive and geared toward today’s wide variety of students and business’ needs.
The depth and breadth of educational potential in the Roanoke Valley is richer these days than it has been in the past and appears at the edge of becoming almost exponentially better in the near future.