Richard Bland College of William and Mary: Here to Stay?
LULU DAWES // FLAT HAT MAGAZINE
The Richard Bland College of William and Mary is governed by the College’s Board of Visitors. Richard Bland’s alumni and administrators say it’s time for the school to chart its own destiny.
its own destiny.
When the Virginia General Assembly created “the Colleges of William and Mary” system in 1960, Luther J. Carter of The Virginian-Pilot said, “All this apparently is to be accomplished smoothly and painlessly, with no hit dogs, gored oxen, or other casualties.”
But all did not go as smoothly as planned. That system — under the leadership of its sole chancellor, Alvin Duke Chandler — lasted two years.
Chandler left his role as the College’s 21st president after the Board of Visitors selected him to serve an honorary and ceremonial role as the chancellor, the chief executive of the Colleges. He once described the system as his “empire.”
Although its dissolution took place over 61 years ago, the remnants of that bygone organization still remain today. During its two-year period, the Colleges consisted of the College of William and Mary, its Richmond Professional Institute, its Norfolk division, and its two junior colleges — Christopher Newport College and Richard Bland College.
Most of these subsidiaries broke off from the College and achieved total independence: RPI merged with the Medical College of Virginia to form Virginia Commonwealth University, the College’s Norfolk division became Old Dominion University, and Christopher Newport College became a university in 1992. But what of RBC?
In an interview with Inside Higher Ed in February 2023, RBC president Debbie Sydow said the public junior college has evolved to the point that it needs its own dedicated governing board, not a fraction of one.
“So this is the thing I want to be sure you understand,” Sydow told The Flat Hat after a BOV meeting session for the RBC committee. “We are already two separate institutions. We have zero connection to William and Mary as an institution. [Yet] we are governed by the same board.”
COURTESY IMAGE // RICHARD BLAND COLLEGE
In a video released by RBC seven months ago, however, Sydow emphasized the benefits of the institution’s connections to the College.
“Richard Bland’s academically rigorous programs are grounded in the liberal arts tradition of one of America’s oldest and most prestigious public universities, the College of William and Mary,” Sydow said.
For Nina Raneses ’22, an alumna of Richard Bland College, those types of connections with the College were the main reason she chose RBC to start her college career. those types of connections with the College were the main reason she chose RBC to start her college career.
“Going to Richard Bland was a very unexpected but a very necessary part of my college experience,” Raneses said. She enrolled in RBC after taking a gap year in Alexandria, Virginia, following her high school graduation. “I loved everything about William and Mary as soon as I’d learned about the College.”
After learning about the College’s history, Raneses knew it was her dream school.
“I love history, especially British history, and so going to a school named after British monarchs that had a cypher with a crown was good enough for me,” she said. “I knew the student body was passionate, and the small size meant I could count on my professors to be mentors, I could meet all kinds of people, and [I could] ensure that I’d never get lost on campus.”
Because of several academic and personal factors, Raneses opted to apply to RBC before transferring to the College.
“William and Mary was always my dream school, and that was the driving factor for applying to Richard Bland. I’d heard it was a guaranteed way into William and Mary that was different from the [Virginia Community College] system,” Raneses said.
Raneses would eventually be accepted into RBC’s honors program and go on to serve in its Student Assembly. She transferred to the College in 2019 and became a Resident Assistant, transfer admissions intern, and Copy Chief for The Flat Hat and Flat Hat Magazine.
“Richard Bland and William and Mary are two completely different worlds from each other, but they do have a number of similarities. The drive and passion of students at both institutions are admirable, and I had the pleasure of meeting wonderful people at both schools,” Raneses said. “Students at Richard Bland and William and Mary both have overall goals of using their education to propel their careers, but what a ‘career’ looks like and what ‘success’ looks like is very different between the two campuses.”
“William and Mary was always my path forward and Richard Bland was the way I chose to do it. I couldn’t have been more proud of myself for making that choice, and I wouldn’t change it for the world,” she said.
RBC alumna Stephanie Curtis, who attended RBC from 2021 to 2022 and now attends Virginia Tech, raised similar points and added the perspective of a soccer player.
“I decided to go to RBC specifically because of their relations with W&M,” Curtis said. “RBC takes pride in their athletes for soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball, and softball. With that said, the campus advertised its residential space as a marketing point to entice other students to enroll, and the dorm life was fun in my experience.”
Though Curtis was a student-athlete, her main priority was always academics.
“I saw that the professors went above and beyond for their students. One of my favorite professors, Ms. Hines, pushed me to join the debate club along with the Honors program. I met a lot of people within one year at RBC,” she said.
Despite all of these connections, both the College and RBC agree that RBC must determine its own future — with its own separate governing board.
“Today, Richard Bland is overseen by a committee of the Board of Visitors of William and Mary,” Chair of the Richard Bland College Committee John P. Rathbone P ’02 said. “This divides the attention of the board and does a disservice to both institutions.”
Rathbone added the historical context of RBC’s status among Virginia public colleges.
“Richard Bland has been caught in a time warp for 50 years. It was created in the 1960s by William and Mary along with ODU, VCU, and Christopher Newport. All those schools were launched with their own boards long ago and thrived. RBC needs to do the same,” Rathbone said.
The College’s BOV approved a resolution endorsing the separation last November.
Like the “Colleges” system of the 1960s, the separation initially seemed to be headed in a seamless direction. Senate Bill 1077, sponsored by state legislators from both parties in the General Assembly, would have granted RBC total independence with its own governing board.
The bill, which incorporated a similar House bill, received bipartisan, unanimous support in the Senate and the education committee in the House.
RBC was expecting to have its own system of governance in July 2023 until the bill reached the House Appropriations Committee.
“But what she shared with me is that some of the appropriations staff — not elected members, but the folks who actually crunch all the numbers — thought that there might actually be a larger fiscal impact than what there was,” Del. Amanda Batten, R-James City said, relaying information from Del. Emily Brewer, R-Isle of Wight, a patron of the bill and a member of the appropriations committee.
Batten serves on the House Education Committee and, like every other member, voted in favor of the legislation. But because the bill had a fiscal impact statement attached to it, it had to receive final approval from the appropriations committee before it could be considered by the full chamber.
The impact statement claims that a cost of only $41,000 would be exacted on the Auditor of Public Accounts, with no cost at all to the College and minimal costs for RBC.
The House Appropriations Committee never let the bill proceed. As a result, SB 1077 is considered dead following the General Assembly’s sine die adjournment on Feb. 25, 2023.
Batten noted that financial concerns were not brought up during the Education Committee’s deliberations on the bill. Instead, members judged purely on its merits while considering that the College’s BOV “very much wanted this.”
The House Appropriations Committee was not the only faction raising objections to the current separation plan. The Virginia Community College System suggested that, instead of becoming independent, RBC could become another subsidiary of the VCCS.
“VCCS already has a lot of institutions that are under their governance,” Batten said. “So whether or not they should take on another one, I think is a question to be answered.”
COURTESY IMAGE // THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY
State Sen. Monty Mason ’89, D-Williamsburg, a sponsor of SB 1077, said he doesn’t believe that the separation would have added additional costs to the state budget.
“There’s no necessary [additional] money in the budget because we already have an established structure, and we just want them to have their own board and their own autonomy,” Mason said. “I think there has been some difficulty on the House side, maybe with concern about more costs because they’re independent. We don’t believe that to be the case.”
Mason, like many others, pointed to DroneUp’s announcement to establish a testing, training, and research and development center at RBC.
“We believe with the DroneUp opportunities that are there, with the programs that they’ve put in place, with their beautiful residential campus, that the time is right for them to go on their own,” Mason said. “And they’ve earned it. We worked together for a lot of years. And we in the Senate unanimously believe that the time is now.”
Batten, Rathbone, and Sydow all discussed DroneUp’s plans with RBC, noting the opportunities that it would create.
“Richard Bland is kind of going into innovation,” Batten said, noting that RBC is different from any other two-year institution in Virginia, being a residential campus along with opportunities from DroneUp. “I would say their drone program is up-and-coming and has had a lot of publicity on it.”
Rathbone echoed Batten’s sentiments.
“RBC’s collaboration with DroneUp and the development of a new research and development hub for drone technology highlights the need for a dedicated board,” Rathbone said. “The mission of each institution is unique.”
These efforts, first begun in 2014, have resulted in legislative failure. It is unclear whether Gov. Glenn Youngkin supports the legislation; his office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
RBC’s future plans remain to be seen. Mason pointed to the possibility of incorporating the breakaway into the Senate’s budget negotiations.
“It could conceivably still be a part of the negotiations on the budget, but that doesn't bode well for it on that side,” Mason said. “As we discussed last time, it was unanimously supported in the Senate. It’s in the Senate budget because we think the time is right. I don't know what part of the negotiations it will play, but unfortunately, maybe not a lot.”
Batten articulated that while the prospect of it being included in budget negotiations is unlikely, she points to the possibility of a long-term review of the process.
“We’re looking to see if there could be a longer term review of the financials for Richard Bland rather than just the input that we’d received from William and Mary and some of the other stakeholders,” Batten said.
Rathbone said RBC and the BOV will try again in the near future.
“We look forward to continuing to make our case next year,” Rathbone said. “Many times, it takes more than one attempt to gain passage of a bill, but I think we established a strong foothold in this legislative session to pursue an independent board for Richard Bland College.”
For Raneses, even though she applied to RBC in hopes of eventually transferring to the College, the separation seems like the right course for both institutions.
“I think if you asked me while I was still a student at RBC, I would’ve said RBC should remain affiliated with and governed by William and Mary,” Raneses said. “As I mentioned, Richard Bland’s affiliation with William and Mary is literally why I applied and convinced myself to attend, but having now been to both schools, I think it makes more sense for them to separate.”
She pointed to the relationship of RBC with its vibrant local Petersburg community. Situated approximately an hour outside Richmond, Petersburg’s population size is about double that of Williamsburg.
“Don’t get me wrong, I benefited a lot from the close relationship between RBC and William and Mary. But I do think both schools would do really well on their own — Richard Bland especially,” Raneses added.
She said RBC is colloquially referred to as just “Richard Bland” and “many may not even know about their affiliation” with the College.
She also cited her involvement in RBC committee meetings at the BOV as a source of her support for the separation.
“As someone who has sat and spoken on Richard Bland committee BOV meetings, I can also say that I think Richard Bland could benefit more from a BOV tailored to the needs of the school itself,” Raneses said. “It would be much easier for William and Mary BOV members to not have to deal with the logistical nightmares of traveling to campus and hosting meetings on top of their other work as members.”
Like Sydow and others, Raneses believes disunion would be the most beneficial path forward.
“As an alumna of both institutions, this is the best outcome for them both. I truly believe RBC and W&M have gotten all they can through their partnership, and so have other students like me who have degrees from the both,” Raneses said. “I am unsure of why the bill was killed in committee, but I could easily chalk it up to people being afraid to take a step forward.”
For alums like Curtis and Raneses, the connection between the institutions represented opportunities for students.
“I loved that the affiliation with William and Mary was a huge plus in terms of resources, scholarships, and programs,” Raneses said. “I hope Richard Bland will still be able to keep some of these things intact if the schools separate, but I know they have plans to chart a path to a future beyond William and Mary.”
Even if RBC and the College officially separate in the future, officials from both institutions say the impact of that on the day-to-day operations of RBC would be limited, and connections between the College would remain.
“William and Mary has guaranteed admission agreements with all of Virginia’s public two-year institutions, and the university would continue to welcome RBC students to William and Mary,” Suzanne Clavet, the College’s Director of News and Media, said.
“I suppose ‘separating’ is the technical term,” Raneses said, “but I see it as a way for Richard Bland to grow on its own and into a new era.”