The board of directors of the New College Institute has dismissed a proposal that would have endorsed putting the state-run higher education center in Martinsville under the umbrella of Patrick & Henry Community College.
The board voted unanimously at its meeting Wednesday to table the proposal by member Mark Crabtree and requested that the board chair direct the workforce and academics committee to review potential merger options.
Some members expressed concern that Crabtree had sought out support from the community college and other community stakeholders, instead of first bringing his proposal to the board’s workforce and academics committee.
Crabtree did not attend the meeting due to a medical emergency. Reached Thursday, he said he’s comfortable with the plan for committee members to consider his proposal alongside alternatives. “They obviously need to look at all the options,” he said. “This is certainly an excellent one.”
He said that if a better option arises that supports job creation and opportunity for people in the region, he would support it. The important thing is that the board is talking about it now. “We had to get the ball moving,” Crabtree said.
Crabtree was once the mayor of Martinsville. His proposal had won support from the Henry County Board of Supervisors; state Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County; Del. Eric Phillips, R-Henry County; the Harvest Foundation; and the Martinsville-Henry County Academic Foundation, according to the text of the proposal.
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The General Assembly would need to change the state law that created NCI in order for such a merger to take place. Crabtree’s proposal would have asked the General Assembly and secretary of education for their assistance in facilitating the merger and transferring NCI’s annual state appropriation of about $3 million to Patrick & Henry Community College.
Crabtree planned to present his proposal to the NCI board at its September meeting, but that all-virtual meeting was cut short by a cyber attack. Crabtree then released his plan to the media.
The institute has been targeted by the Youngkin administration in recent years as participation in higher education programs run there dwindled to a single partner, Longwood University, compared to four operating there in the years leading up to the pandemic.
NCI has also been mired in a legal battle with its former fundraising foundation, now known as the Martinsville-Henry County Academic Foundation, over ownership of the approximately $15 million in the foundation’s coffers. The foundation changed its mission nearly three years ago to fund education in the region instead of solely supporting NCI.
Of the five higher education centers around the state intended to increase access to postsecondary education, NCI is the only one without a dedicated foundation supporting it, NCI Board Chair Eric Jones noted.
Board member Marcus Stone, CEO of Connect Health + Wellness in Martinsville, expressed disappointment at the way the proposal had been prepared and presented. “It’s a little bit frustrating or disappointing that the amount of work being put into this wasn’t necessarily channeled in a positive way to help promote and grow NCI,” he said.
Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick County, worried that endorsing Crabtree’s proposal could signal that NCI couldn’t go forward on its own. “I’m wanting to make sure that whatever we do, we don’t unintentionally say that NCI can’t function, can’t continue, can’t do what it needs to do, by accidentally painting this as like the best possible route for it,” he said.
The NCI board has five seats assigned to state legislators and 10 appointed by the governor.
Battle over $15 million continues
Jones’ concern about the proposal provided a glimpse into the ongoing tension between NCI and its former foundation.
The attorney general’s office, which serves as the institute’s legal counsel, represented NCI in mediation with the foundation in 2024 to determine ownership of the millions the foundation was holding, including $7.5 million from the sale of NCI’s Martinsville campus to the state in 2020.
That mediation stalled in fall 2024.
In its June meeting, the board voted unanimously to give Jones the authority to negotiate with the MHC Academic Foundation based on a conversation during closed session.
Jones pointed out part of Crabtree’s proposal that claimed the MHC Academic Foundation “believes” a NCI-P&HCC merger would be in line with its mission.
“I did not know about this conversation,” Jones said. He added that a side conversation between board members and the foundation without his knowledge during the ongoing legal matter invalidated the entire proposal.
“This is not a local disagreement,” Jones said about the conflict with the foundation. “This is a legal disagreement that we got to see through, and we have to work with our delegates and our leadership to make sure that we see that to the end,” Jones said.
Meanwhile, Jones tasked board committees with a number of tasks ahead of the General Assembly session, the first to convene during the administration of Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger.
Among them was the exploration of a potential name change for NCI to better describe it as a higher education center.
“I’m not announcing a name change,” Jones said. “But I’m saying there’s time for us to discuss, to get the ball rolling on calling ourselves something different, because I think the tag ‘NCI’ just leads to confusion from the start.”