Last November, leaders at historically black Bluefield State College were considering options for furloughing and laying off staff members to counter falling enrollment.
During a speech Nov. 15, Bluefield State College’s new president juxtaposed two graphs. Both showed decline, but not in equal measure.
The left graph on the PowerPoint slide showed the college’s number of full-time students had dropped 40 percent since 2012, down to 950 this semester.
The right graph? It showed that, while the number of staff had dropped over 30 percent since 2012, full-time faculty had stayed roughly level, at 60-80, the entire time.
“On its face, this looks disproportionate, especially in regard to the dramatic decline in full-time students we’ve experienced in recent years,” President Robin Capehart said in the speech, which the school posted online.
This week, the school announced plans to introduce 12 new sports at the institution, including football.
Adding sports is a tool to build enrollment through attracting scholarship athletes and undergraduates looking for a campus life experience that includes gameday culture.
But the idea of adding 12 sports in the midst of an enrollment freefall and a global health pandemic suggests that excess in sports may prove fatal to a school facing financial exigency.
West Virginia is among the nation’s leaders in population loss, and among its worst in K-12 college readiness outcomes. Add to this its struggles with industrial reinvention and the result is a perfect storm crashing against higher education and the stability of all colleges and universities in the state.
Just two years ago, officials in the state were looking to dismantle the state’s system of higher education, with BSC and West Virginia State University in the crosshairs for possible merger; an idea that BSC officials had to address last December.
The issue of whether BSC could be closed or merge with Concord or become a branch of another university was also addressed.
“All of this being said … we’re here today to tell you that we have no intention of closing,” (BSC President Robin Capehart) said. “And while will seek ways to cooperate with other colleges for the benefit of both institutions, we also have no intention of merging with any other institution.”
Capehart also said BSC wants to bring back a popular sport.
“Finally, let me say, that we have all the intentions in the world of – one day – putting our own football team back on the field and not being bought or becoming a branch of an institution that already has a football team – and plays in the Big 12,” he said, referring to talk of the college being a part of West Virginia University.
Sports may be a way out of enrollment strife, or it could be a way into oblivion for the HBCU; it could very easily duplicate efforts which have helped historically black private Allen University to attract more students and revenue, or it could mirror the financial black hole that ultimately forced Saint Paul’s College to shutter athletics in 2011 and to close the university in 2013.
It will take a few years to get a true picture of how the bet on Big Blue will impact the institution and its surrounding community, but for an HBCU which already lives outside of the immediate orbit of “black college” culture, it is important to keep this school and its fortunes front of mind as an example of how a plan presented with the best of intentions can make or break the HBCU mission in a region.
