Ferrum College will move to NCAA Division II and join Conference Carolinas, becoming the 16th school in the athletic conference.
It’s the latest in a string of changes that the small, private college in Franklin County has made to attract students and fight off dwindling enrollment that has plagued it in recent years.
President Mirta Martin made the announcement at a press conference on campus on Friday, flanked by Conference Carolinas Commissioner Chris Colvin, Ferrum Athletic Director Cleive Adams, and notable former student Billy Wagner, who spent 16 years in Major League Baseball as a star pitcher.
“This transition underscores Ferrum College’s commitment to fostering a well-rounded collegiate experience that prioritizes the development of the whole student,” Martin said. She noted the alignment between Ferrum’s faith-based mission of serving others with Conference Carolinas’ slogan of “Building champions in body, mind and soul.”
Ferrum will join the conference as a provisional member in 2025 as it completes the process of applying to the NCAA to move to Division II, coinciding with Conference Carolina’s relaunch of football among its two dozen sports programs.
Ferrum will leave the Division III Old Dominion Athletic Conference, of which it has been a part since 2018.
“It is a heavy lift, we understand that,” said Adams — one that has been considered for more than a year. The move to Division II will provide greater visibility for the school, Adams said, along with increased competition and enhanced recruiting efforts.
But Adams emphasized that the move will benefit the larger Ferrum College community.
What will Ferrum’s move means for its sports programs? See this story.
“It’s no secret that athletics are a big part of who we are here at Ferrum College,” he said. “But we are much more than that. … We have a diverse liberal arts and professional campus community that will be absolutely instrumental in the success of this journey.”
Adams said the college is looking forward to eventually making upgrades to Swartz Gymnasium and outdoor athletic facilities, including the possibility of building a dedicated track and field facility.
Another perk of the shift will be opportunities for students to participate in esports. The conference offers competitions for sport-specific video games such as Madden, FIFA and NBA2K. While it’s not a yearlong sports sponsorship, Colvin called it “a value-add” for conference schools.
Converse University in Spartanburg, South Carolina, launched an esports athletics program in 2010, debuting a co-ed video game team to compete with other colleges. King University in Bristol, Tennessee, also participates in esports through Conference Carolinas.
Michael Hamm, a junior from Ridgeway who runs track, jumped in his seat at the press conference when the announcement was made Friday.
“I’m very excited,” he said. “I always strive for harder competition and always want to see what the next level is.” Although he’s likely to graduate prior to the 2025 shift to Division II, he said he’s looking forward to the eventual impact of the move for his teammates. Those perks could include partial athletic scholarships, which Division III schools don’t offer.
“It’s going to be a draw for people who want to be here. Virginia doesn’t have a lot of D-II schools, and bringing in another one just brings a bigger opportunity for a lot more people. It brings more life to the campus.”
On Saturday, he’ll travel to High Point University to compete in an invitational meet, where Hamm said he’ll be surrounded by runners at Division I and Division II schools — including several Conference Carolina schools.
Martin’s last two presidential posts, at Fairmont State University in West Virginia and Fort Hays State University in Kansas, were both Division II schools. In a press conference following the announcement Friday, Adams said that the idea to move to Division II came from Martin.
The school has spent at least $15,000 on consulting for the move, Adams said, and he spoke with representatives of Frostburg State University in Maryland and D’Youville University in Buffalo, New York, about their recent moves to Division II.
Ferrum’s conference and division move is the latest in a series of big swings Martin has spearheaded since taking the college’s top post last year. The school has announced free tuition for some low-income Virginia residents, followed by a move to reduce tuition for everyone by $10,000. Ferrum also recently restructured its academic programs into six schools, and added two online graduate programs.
It’s all part of turning Ferrum from what Washington Monthly once called one of the worst colleges in America into what Martin frequently describes as “a destination of choice” for students from the commonwealth and beyond.
The school is among a number of small private schools around the region that are fighting to attract students as competition increases for a shrinking pool of applicants. In fall 2014, Ferrum had about 1,450 undergraduate students, compared to just 775 in fall 2023, according to data from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
But despite an overall decline in enrollment, rural Ferrum continues to cater to students of color, as well as to those from low-income households and those who are the first in their families to attend college. Throughout the 2010s, more than 40% of Ferrum students identified as students of color, per SCHEV data, and that rate still remains around 30%.
And 41% of this year’s undergraduate students are first-generation. Hollins University is the only four-year school in Virginia with a higher rate of first-generation students, at 60%, though Old Dominion University and Virginia State University are both at 40%.
Ferrum will be Virginia’s fifth Division II school, joining the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, Virginia State University and Virginia Union University along with, most recently, Emory & Henry.
Expanding athletic opportunities has been a focus for some small colleges hoping to draw in students.
Roanoke College is adding football, along with cheerleading and a marching band, in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference that Ferrum is vacating.
And Randolph College has announced a host of new athletic teams ranging from wrestling to men’s volleyball to STUNT, a cheerleading-adjacent sport focusing on jumps, tumbles and tosses during choreographed routines.
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Correction 11:55 a.m. April 8: Ferrum College will be the fifth Division II school in Virginia. The tally was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.