For-profit college to open in South Boston next year

by Heather B. Hayes
for Virginia Business
December 2006

Virginia will add a new degree-granting college to its collection of higher education institutions next fall, but don't expect a traditional academic environment. Founders College - to be located at the historic Berry Hill Plantation in South Boston - will be a residential liberal arts institution and will operate as a for-profit corporation.

The project was nearly knocked off course, however. The campus was going to be in Lynch Station, just south of Lynchburg, but in late October the Campbell County Planning Commission rejected the college's efforts to purchase and rezone the proposed 1,100-acre site.

Founders College officials were scrambling to revamp their plan when they chanced upon Berry Hill, a former resort that was for sale. The 660-acre site, once part of a huge tobacco plantation, includes a Greek revival mansion built in 1842. The change of location will enable Founders College to stick to its schedule and begin enrolling 100 to 150 students next fall.

The Berry Hill property is "far and away the superior campus site," says Tamra Fuller, chief strategy officer for Founders College. The property was already zoned for academic use, has an existing infrastructure and is easily accessible. "The financial and regulatory advantages available at the Berry Hill site are overwhelming in terms of our need to stay on plan and avoid unnecessary expenses," Fuller says.

Founders College will offer 25 scholarships worth $4,000 per year to 25 high school and junior college students from the South Boston area, so long as they maintain proper academic status.

The goal of Founders College is to redefine and revitalize liberal arts education, explains Gary Hull, chairman and CEO of the college and formerly the director of the ethics program at Duke University. The veteran academician came up with the idea for a new type of college based on his growing disillusionment with liberal arts education.

"You can graduate from a 'good' liberal arts college, meaning a Top 20 school, without taking a history course. That's criminal," he states. "My vision for this college is to focus on proper content, the important ideas and events that all undergraduates should know - irrespective of whether they want to be journalists, physicists or bakers."