Witnessing history with a new vision
Dean Stephen S. Mansfield
As I've recounted many times over the years, my first vision of Virginia Wesleyan was a very limited one. During my two-day visit to the campus as a faculty candidate in Spring 1968 an unusually heavy fog persisted so that, although the college facilities consisted only of Village I, I could see just a portion of the cluster from any one vantage point. Yet the challenge and excitement associated with helping to build a new college were contagious, and in that sense the vision seemed unlimited.
Colleges must operate on the basis of policies, and in the early years faculty meetings were held twice monthly to work through definitions of good standing, the number of credit hours which could be transferred in, the number of hours consisting of a major, how to evaluate AP credit and dozens of other decisions necessary to serve students and faculty in the future. The tedium of so many long faculty sessions was balanced by such external affirmations of our young college as acceptance into graduate school for some of our first alumni, SACS accreditation at the earliest time possible, the raising of Virginia Wesleyan's Carnegie classification and the influx of very able new faculty colleagues impressed by the College's growth.
Virginia Wesleyan had been conceived as a private, residential college, reflecting a 1950s survey of higher education needs in Hampton Roads as well as an opportunity for the Methodist Church to build upon its record of commitment to liberal arts education. The first student I met on moving into Eggleston Hall in September 1968 as a faculty member in residence was a young man from Germany, Hans Heitkamp, and one of the students in my first class was a gentleman of 70, symbols of the opportunity which a Hampton Roads college also has to connect with the world and to serve non-traditional-age students to a degree not possible for Virginia's private colleges located in more rural areas. As Gordon Davis was about to leave the directorship of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia in 1997, he wrote an essay focusing upon the future of higher education, and one of his criteria for survival in the 21st century was that institutions be well-rooted in their own communities. Collaboration with the Virginia Aquarium, the impact of the Center for the Study of Religious Freedom, the internship opportunities through PORTfolio as well as departmental programs and a myriad of community service roles only hint at the fruitful potential experiences that Virginia Wesleyan's setting and initiative can provide for our students.
Last fall the class of 1970 gathered for a 35th anniversary reunion, and they had the luxury of combining memories as the pioneer student body with the anticipation of Virginia Wesleyan joining the ranks of Phi Beta Kappa institutions. They will remember the library as one room in the Fine Arts Building with cinder blocks and wooden planks for shelving while they now can access thousands of resources through Hofheimer Library data base subscriptions and receive their alumni news online. They may remember Virginia Wesleyan's preparation for response to the first national Earth Day observance as they learn about steps for moving us closer to becoming a more sustainable campus.
There are many reminders that, as we engage in strategic and long-range planning, economic, technological and natural variables also will call for flexibility of the sort that has served the College so well over the decades. For the new students, faculty and staff who will join us as well as for current colleagues, alumni and friends of the College, the promise and vision for Virginia Wesleyan will motivate us to face each new day with great expectations.