University of Virginia Library

Writer Examines Two Issues

By John Casteen

We are not idealistic enough to
expect Virginia's actions in the field
of higher education to be altogether
progressive or even sensible, but we
are sufficiently obstinate to think
that loud protest may persuade
Richmond's officials to reconsider
some of their recent misguided decisions.
Two specific issues, the
recent decision to locate Region
18's community college in Charlottesville
rather than Scottsville,
and plans for an additional four-year
college at Petersburg, suggest
that we should begin complaining.

The Daily Progress has reported
the community college situation
with a greater than usual degree of
candor. Briefly, the case is that
Region 18, comprising Charlottesville
and the counties of Albemarle,
Fluvanna, Nelson, Cumberland, and
Buckingham, chose, by unanimous
vote of its lawfully constituted site
selection committee, to locate its
college at or near Scottsville.
Scottsville lies about 20 miles
southeast of Charlottesville, near
the corners of Albemarle, Fluvanna,
and Buckingham Counties, and very
near the region's geographical center.
No other town is as convenient
to all parts of the region as Scottsville.
This location was chosen because
it is reasonably central in the
region, because it is easily accessibly
by road from outlying areas,
and because it satisfies all of the
original legislative guidelines for a
community college site. In addition
to these factors, it is worth saying
that a Scottsville site would bring
higher education into an area that
has suffered for want of colleges
and that can be expected to offer
continuing support to a college.

The selection committee designated
a Scottsville site and local
authorities arranged a fair purchase
price for the land. Then, after this
decision had been announced and
after it had gained eager support
from all concerned local governments,
the state Community College
Board, bowing to what must
have been heavy political pressure
from Charlottesville, changed the
original site requirements by demanding
that the college be located
beside a four-lane, interstate highway.
Since the only such road in
Region 18 is Interstate 64, now
under construction near Charlottesville,
Charlottesville was the only
suitable location. Accordingly, the
state board, ignoring local opinion
(except for the apparently powerful
Charlottesville lobby) unilaterally
opted to locate the college at Charlottesville.
The board ignored that
Interstate 64 serves only central
Albemarle and northern Fluvanna
Counties, and that the new location
benefits no one except Charlottesville.

Interestingly enough, the
machinations don't stop here. The
Board designated a site known as
Shoffner Site A, which lies south of
the city limits in a sparsely settled,
hard-to-reach area which will require
extensive development before
it is suitable for college use. It
ignored a similar site, offered for
sale at a much lower price, which
lies alongside a major road (route
20 to Scottsville) and adjacent to
an Interstate 64 interchange. This
site would have been more easily
reached from the south and east, in
which directions lie most of the
region's constituents. The only students
likely to come from the north
and west are residents of Charlottesville
and northern Albemarle
County, and to them either site
would have been equally desirable.

What has happened here is that
Richmond's machinery has ground
out a decision on a local matter
that is manifestly unsatisfactory to
most residents of the localities involved.
Every concerned governing
body except Charlottesville-Albemarle
has condemned the new
location, and angry citizens' groups
throughout the region have begun
campaigns to re-locate the college
at its original site. Two counties
have won partial exemption from
Region 18 because the new site is
farther than the law allows from
their population centers, and signs
are abundant that other counties
may ask similar exemptions. A
community college that began its
struggle to life with massive public
support seems doomed to become a
battle ground for local power. And
the reason is not that the localities
involved have welshed on the deal.
The reason is that bunglers in Richmond
have screwed the terms at the
last moment.

Most important, Charlottesville
already has a college. In this city,
the community college can never
hope to be more than a poor
kinsman of the University, accepting
local students who cannot get
into the established college and
suffering the blighted image of a
second-rate school. In Scottsville,
on the other hand, it would be the
only college in the area. It would
serve to bring to that community a
wealth of talent that might well
contribute to an economic-cultural
renaissance. As it is now, the Region
18 college will be merely one
more element in Charlottesville's
already overcrowded educational
market.

The situation at Petersburg is
rather more complex, but its solution
is simpler. Virginia State College
at Petersburg is a state-owned,
predominantly Negro institution offering
baccalaureate and limited
graduate programs. Its faculty and
administration are (and have been
since its beginnings in the 1880's)
predominantly Negro. Virginia has
offered Virginia State College pitifully
little financial support; the
college has made its way pretty
much on its own. Petersburg civic
leaders, wanting a college of their
own and not wanting to enroll their
carefully pigmented white children
in the Negro college, have begun
agitation to build a separate, quintessentially
white college at Petersburg.
Services offered would parallel
Virginia State College's, and the
required physical plant would be
very similar to that already extant
at the Negro school.

Petersburg is, of course, the
capital of Virginia's Southside. Its
total political might far exceeds its
relatively small size because it can
draw on local political chieftains
scattered as far as Waverly and
Wakefield on the east, South Boston
and Boykins on the south, and
Farmville and Danville on the west.
Virginia State's alumni have
launched a campaign to protect
their college and to insure its future
growth. One of them, A.L. Scott of
Charlottesville, has begun an appeal
for public support. But their
chances of success are small unless
Virginia's white population wakes
up to what is going on and adds its
voice and vote to the demand for
better planning and management.

It is hard to say that two colleges
are not better than one, but it
is true. Virginia State College is
hardly a large college at present —
its total enrollment is less than that
of the University's College — but it
is a going, successful operation. Its
campus is flexible and expandable.
Its faculty is experienced and well
known, especially in the North and
Mid-west. If more money is to be
spent at Petersburg — and much
more should be spent — the beneficiary
should be Virginia State
College. To build a second college
simply to provide a white alternative
to Petersburg's black embarrassment
is sheer folly. To expand
and improve an existing, effective,
and good college is, on the other
hand, sound policy which deserves
the support of all Virginians.