It seemed such an easy thing.
Two legislators from Franklin County and Henry County wanted the General Assembly to approve a study. Voting for a study seems one of the easiest things the legislature can do. A cynic might say that the General Assembly often approves a study in lieu of real action. What harm can there be in finding out more information about something?
This particular request for a study struck a nerve, in the same way that a cold drink triggers that sensitive tooth you have.
The bill in question would have directed the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia to study the possibility of expanding Virginia Commonwealth University’s dental school into “Southern Virginia,” a phrase that state Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, said could mean either Southwest or Southside Virginia.
A House Education subcommittee on Monday voted 6-4 to “lay on the table” HB 2778, by Del. Eric Phillips, R-Henry County, a polite way of killing the measure. After that, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Senate Finance would do the same with the Senate version, Stanley’s SB 1478, which it did on Wednesday, in the form of a vote to “pass by indefinitely,” another one of those gentle parliamentary ways to put a bill out of its misery.
While the bill spoke only of that vague “Southern Virginia,” Stanley made it clear that one site he’d really like to see studied is the New College Institute in Martinsville. He described breaking a tooth during one legislative session; he went to VCU for treatment. He was impressed by the dental work but not the building, which he said needed to be replaced. “I am told that a new building will cost at least $400 million and years to build in downtown Richmond, when we have ready state-owned buildings like the Baldwin Building [at NCI] that is paid for and ready to go,” Stanley said.
That did not go well with the House members who heard the bill, two of whom are from the Richmond area. There were concerns that such a study would lead to part of VCU’s dental school moving out of town. Naturally, they didn’t like that.
When Stanley appeared before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, he knew what the outcome would be. Still he pointed out: “We have these beautiful buildings that we paid for.”
There are several things going on here, and the fine treatment that Stanley got for his broken tooth may be the least among them. Phillips and Stanley tried to make the case that a dental program in “Southern Virginia” would help increase the number of dentists in rural Virginia. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a proposal for a dental school in the western part of the state. A decade ago, Bluefield University looked into starting a dental school in Tazewell County but abandoned the project for lack of funding.
However, this really seems less about a dental program but more about a) finding a program for the New College Institute and b) finding any economic development project for Martinsville and Henry County.
Let’s review, then look forward.
The New College Institute was founded in 2006 with the hope — at least in some quarters — that it would evolve into just what its name suggests: a brand new state college.
That seemed a perfectable reasonable idea at the time, perhaps even a brilliant one. The textile and furniture economy in Martinsville-Henry County had collapsed. In a decade and a half, one-third of the jobs in Martinsville had gone away, according to the Federal Reserve. It was clear that, across the country, universities were the new economic engines and there was not a single four-year state university along the state’s southern border. The idea of a prospective University of Martinsville (my name, not a formal one) came at a time when births in the U.S. were increasing. Births in 2006 were at their highest level since the record peaks of the baby boom era in 1957-61 and seemed likely to top those. That meant there’d be lots of future college students to draw from. In the meantime, perhaps NCI could serve as a higher education center for existing schools to offer programs.
Some hopeful demographic trends in Martinsville and Henry County
The most recent round of population estimates that came out this week from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia had some good news for Martinsville and Henry County.
It doesn’t look like it at first, because both communities are still showing up as losing population (so are most others in Southwest and Southside). Beneath the surface, though, things are more complicated — and more interesting.
Over the past two years, both Martinsville and Henry County have seen more people move in than move out. They’re still both losing population, but that’s entirely because, with aging populations, deaths outnumber both births and any net in-migration.
From 2020 to 2022, Martinsville saw net in-migration of 63. From 2020 to 2024, that has jumped to 355, meaning the past two years have seen a big increase of people moving in.
From 2020 to 2022, Henry County saw a net out-migration of -1,142, meaning 1,142 more people moved out than moved in. However, when we look at 2020 to 2024, we see that figure fall to -301. Again, a sign that in the past two years there were more people moving in than moving out.
That’s consistent with what we’re seeing across other parts of rural Virginia. We’re seeing fewer people move, and, when they do, more of them are moving out of major cities into smaller communities.
Martinsville and Henry County are among the beneficiaries of those trends.
We’ve collected all our demographic trends in one place.
Obviously that transition from the New College Institute to an actual college did not happen. Instead, two other things did, both of which have rendered that mythical University of Martinsville moot. The most important: That latter-day baby boom has turned into a baby bust. The number of births in the U.S. peaked in 2007 and has been falling since. (While birth rates have been falling since 1957, the number of births has stayed higher because of a growing population, which has been partly fueled by immigration. The key figure here is the actual number of births, not the birth rates.) The kids who were born in 2006 are turning 19 this year, so most who are planning to go to college may already be in school. Instead, the number of births has generally been falling and is now down to levels we had in the 1980s. This is the so-called “enrollment cliff” that colleges are worried about falling off; starting this year, the number of people in the pool of traditional-age college students will decline. In hindsight, it might be a good thing that the state didn’t create a University of Martinsville, or it might today be on the list of schools that the General Assembly’s investigative arm last year warned should be more closely monitored because of enrollment challenges.
Technology has also undermined the concept of NCI as a place for distance learning; the Zoom era means students don’t need to go to a central location.
Whether NCI today has a clear purpose is a matter of debate. I’ve heard Stanley deliver eloquent descriptions of what NCI can and is doing; it’s certainly developed some innovative programs such as training wind energy technicians. The key point is that the governor is skeptical of NCI. He tried to defund NCI last year and failed. Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s current budget amendments also propose to zero out funding. He also wants to see a plan that includes options for merging with another entity or closing altogether. That doesn’t exactly make legislators outside the region feel good about NCI. Indeed, Del. Briana Sewell, D-Prince William County, who chaired the House panel that killed Phillips’ bill, referenced Youngkin’s intention “to defund NCI” in the meeting. Democrats may not like Youngkin’s policies, but they may trust that, with his business background, he has found an entity on the state org chart that doesn’t make sense to him.
Legislative budget-writers may again overrule the governor on NCI funding (we’ll get some sense when the House and Senate money committee release their versions of the budget on Sunday), but if you’re a legislator who represents Martinsville — as both Phillips and Stanley do — you’d be wise to have a contingency plan. Both these legislators are creative thinkers and this is what they came up with.
Their instincts are not wrong. We do have a shortage of dentists and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says virtually every locality in Virginia outside the urban crescent needs more dentists. There’s no guarantee, of course, that dental students educated in a potential program in Martinville or anywhere else in “Southern Virginia” would actually stay in the region. Perhaps what we need are more residency programs, such as those through the Appalachian Highlands Community Dental Center in Abingdon.
Let’s not get sidetracked with dental issues, though. The VCU dental program seemed more a target of opportunity. Their point is to create something in Martinsville that could grow the local economy. If that’s not a dental program, what else could that be? Virginia Tech just opened its Innovation Campus in Alexandria to help grow the technology economy there. What’s the potential equivalent in Martinsville?
Stanley has a point: “We have a building here that we paid for,” meaning the NCI’s Baldwin Building. For the state to shutter the place would send a terrible signal about Martinsville and Henry County. If the state’s not willing to invest in one of its own communities, why should anybody else?
Whose land is this?
The land above is owned by a Virginia politician. That politician recently put the land under a conservation easement with the Blue Ridge Land Conservancy. I’ll have more to say about who, what and where in this week’s edition of West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter.
I’ll also look at the latest actions in Richmond and Washington. You can sign up for that or any of our other newsletters here:
