Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 12, 1993 TAG: 9310120119
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Some have called the campaign a last-chance survival effort for the private, two-year women's college in Buena Vista, which earlier this year announced reductions in employee salaries and benefits.
But Col. John W. Ripley, president of the college, says that, while the campaign - dubbed the "Campaign for the Future" - is very important to the college's survival, it is not "life and death."
"This is a daggone serious campaign," Ripley said Monday. "But I'm certainly not saying the failure of the campaign means the failure of the college."
Over the next three months, the college will seek cash contributions and pledges from alumnae. The funds will boost the college's endowment, which helps support operations, salaries and maintenance of the physical plant.
The campaign is a first for the college. In the 30 years since its conversion from a for-profit school to a standard private college, Southern Virginia has not had a full-fledged capital campaign, Ripley said.
"We've never had a tradition of asking for money," he said. "It's almost as if we've Rip Van Winkled into the present. There has never been a serious, modern, sophisticated campaign."
For years, the college has depended primarily on tuition and a small annual fund drive. The college's board of trustees now finds it imperative that the college build the endowment in order to be financially secure.
That Southern Virginia did not succeed with its proposal to help end litigation over VMI's all-male admissions policy was a blow, Ripley said. Even more of a blow was learning that Mary Baldwin College in Staunton would receive $6.9 million from the VMI Foundation to establish a military-style education program for women, he said.
"We're disappointed," Ripley said. "But there's certainly no question that the Mary Baldwin program would be an exemplary program. Their facilities and capabilities are certainly adequate and equal to ours, albeit distant." Southern Virginia is six miles from VMI; Mary Baldwin is 35 miles away.
Ripley said he had been in discussions with VMI representatives for a year about setting up a separate program for women. About a month ago, the discussions stopped, he said.
"Now we see the VMI Foundation is giving $7 million to sustain and create a program at Mary Baldwin," Ripley said. "That has to be considered a very major disappointment to Southern Virginia."
The two-year private college is a rarity - and even more so because it is single-sex. Southern Virginia is the only such institution in Virginia.
The niche that type of institution fills is unique, he said.
"We can take a student who hasn't been successful in high school and in two years make that student very competitive and get her in the college she wanted to get into in the first place," Ripley said. "We have a small, nurturing atmosphere. We bombard them with attention. If they want to fail, we don't let them fail."
Southern Virginia's enrollment of 179 this year is low, reflecting a national trend, Ripley said. Schools admitted applicants who were on their waiting lists as late as August to meet their enrollment projections, he said.
Southern Virginia also has appealed to alumnae to help recruit students.
The president of an accreditation committee, who recently visited the college, called it a fine institution with a good academic program, a capable administration, dedicated faculty and excellent facilities.
"The only thing that it really lacks is money," he said.
by CNB