On September 12, 2025, the Longwood University Board of Visitors held their September meeting at the Baliles Center in Westmoreland County, Virginia. The Board, which typically meets on campus, discussed the university’s enrollment and retention, financial health, athletics and other matters.
This meeting was the first with four new members appointed over the summer by Governor Glenn Youngkin — Ian Bradley, Carman Faison, Jacklyn McCaleb and Dr. Michael Poliakoff. With their appointments, the Board is officially entirely made up of Youngkin-appointees, the Governor’s final round of appointments before leaving office in January 2026.
The Board of Visitors, composed of 16 members appointed by the Governor, is responsible for approving and amending university policies, approving the yearly budget and hiring or firing the president of the institution.
The meeting comes at a tumultuous time in Higher Education across the state after Democrats on the State Senate’s Privileges and Elections Committee blocked 14 of Youngkin’s appointments to Boards of Visitors at George Mason University, the University of Virginia and the Virginia Military Institute. Currently, none of the appointments to Longwood’s Board have been blocked.
Rector Ron White called the meeting to order at 1 p.m. after Board members observed the ‘Moment of Prayer and Reflection’ at 12:20 p.m. called by Youngkin following the killing of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk in Utah and in remembrance of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In his opening remarks, University President W. Taylor Reveley IV said, “This is obviously a solemn time for our country. I am quick to say more of the spirit of Longwood prevailed nationwide, even as a lot of things ail us now… There's no question that we're in a hard time. That makes our work even more important.”
As part of the Consent Agenda, the set of proposals for policy additions and amendments, the Board approved an update to Longwood’s Name, Image and Likeness policy following the NCAA settlement which allowed universities to pay student athletes directly. They also approved a policy related to confidential employee information, which is done annually.
Originally included in the Consent Agenda was an update to Longwood’s debt management policy, but this was taken out and will be discussed at the Board’s December meeting.
The meeting was focused primarily on the Six-Year Plan, which is submitted every two years to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) and required to be presented to the Board of Visitors. The document, which serves as a progress report for the University, includes data on financial standing, enrollment, retention, post-graduate success and other metrics measuring the institution’s success.
Discussion over enrollment dominated much of the meeting as institutions of higher education brace for the “enrollment cliff,” an expected drop-off in college enrollment due to declining birth rates after the 2008 Great Recession.
“If you put 2008 and the Great Recession into your mind's eye, and then you add 18, you get the demographic,” Reveley said “Because, what happened is birth rates across the country fell in 2008 and then they have never bounced back.”
He continued, "That's a phenomenon that's going to ripple through all of American society over the years. That's going to have an effect — An effect on housing and healthcare. Everything you can imagine is going to ultimately be touched by the fact that the American population is beginning a plateau, as opposed to growing and growing the way that we're more accustomed to.”
According to SCHEV data, Longwood’s enrollment has been steadily recovering since a major drop after the COVID-19 pandemic, assisted by a large increase in graduate students. In the 2020-21 Academic Year, Longwood hosted 3,940 undergraduate students and 901 graduate students — compared to 3,314 undergraduate students and 1,298 graduate students in 2024-25.
“We are lucky that the demographics of the college-going cohort [in Virginia] are… basically stable, at a plateau, as opposed to what's happening very acutely in the northeastern parts of the country, the Upper Midwest, where there's just an absolute decline,” Reveley said.
Reveley, entering his 13th year as Longwood’s president, said Longwood is focusing on retention to fight the impending cliff. “We're very focused on retention. It's just being sure that we help freshmen who become sophomores and then progress on to graduation,” he said.
Retention is defined by the number of full-time freshman students returning to the institution as full-time sophomores. According to the six-year plan, Longwood’s retention sits at 80.1%.
“It will get better. It's just one of those things that's really hard. But we're going to continue to work on it… the rate, basically, is steady across a long swath of time,” Reveley said. “The retention rate is a great proxy for how well students are doing, how well an institution is doing, so I'm glad to see it. Ours is stable, and from a national standpoint, pretty good.” He also said the university will “continue to pour energy into [retention] and get it up into [an] 85% range.”
Reveley also discussed enrollment and revenue from student athletes, which prompted a question from Board member Vellie Dietrich-Hall about scholarships. Reveley answered that the NCAA settlement would not change average scholarship rates given to student athletes.
New Board member Dr. Michael Poliakoff then asked about “revenue-negative” sports. He said, “My memory of reading the NCAA report is a little fuzzy now, but it's under the impression that, with the exception of football and basketball, they're usually revenue-negative… I strongly believe in these sports, but as we look at budget projections, I want to just be careful that we're not getting ourselves into things that are going to be higher expenditure than revenue-producing.”
In response, Reveley said, "It really is only basketball and football across college sports that are revenue-positive from a media rights and ticket sales standpoint, but by contrast… if you think about tuition and fees, and then stacked against the cost of operating those sports, far more tuition and fees revenue comes in than is the cost of operating the actual sport.”
He used cross country as an example where “the travel costs and the uniforms, etc, are relatively modest,” but Longwood is able to recruit students who would not have come to the university otherwise.
The Board also discussed faculty and instructional staff. Reveley pointed out, “We have the highest percentage of courses taught by full-time faculty of any of Virginia institutions.” One Board member asked Reveley about faculty salaries compared to other institutions, to which Reveley responded, “We could be a lot better… There's a trade off between average faculty salary and percentage of full-time faculty.”
According to the 2024-25 American Association of University Professors Salary Study, Longwood paid its employees the lowest average salary in the state — $81,000. Full-time faculty members made an average of $83,852 in 2024-25.
At the meeting, the Board also discussed post-graduate success initiatives, the endowment and heard reports from the student and faculty representatives to the Board.
After the meeting, The Rotunda was given the opportunity to interview Poliakoff, one of the four new members of the Board. A full write-up will be available later this week.
