By Taylor Boyd
The New College Institute (NCI) Board of Directors unanimously approved tabling a proposal by member Dr. Mark Crabtree that endorsed Patrick & Henry Community College (P&HCC) overseeing NCI’s operations and converting NCI into the Patrick & Henry Workforce Economic Development Building.
The board also directed Chairman Eric Jones to create a letter encompassing its thoughts on the subject, charging the Workforce and Academics Committee to create a report. The report will be submitted to the board in January.
Crabtree’s proposal was originally set to be heard by NCI’s board at its Sept. 11 meeting. However, the board ended the meeting before the proposal was heard due to a cyber-attack.
The board heard the proposal after it became public, and the Henry County Board of Supervisors added the resolution to the county’s annual legislative agenda in September.
Crabtree was unable to attend the recent meeting due to a medical emergency. His prepared statement was read by Jay Dickens.
“First, I apologize for the unplanned sequence of events that led me to releasing my proposal before we were able to meet. To develop a proposal like this, I was extremely sensitive to the impact it would have on the staff and board members. In a small town, word travels fast, and the deluge of FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests created a toxic environment that risked bad information being reported. I felt making my proposal public for all to see would more accurately reflect the full and true details of what I was proposing, so I’m sorry it turned out the way it did, but I ensure you that I always made it clear that this was my work with the proper consultation to ensure the proposal was valid and supported in the community,” Dickens read.
After thoughtful analysis, Crabtree said he and others felt the most crucial step they could take in empowering the next generation of the workforce was to facilitate the establishment of the P&HCC Workforce Economic Development Center at the Baldwin Building.
P&HCC “is committed to economic mobility and to enriching the quality of life in our region through academic excellence, educational affordability, student success, workforce development, and community engagement. We are very confident that P&H will use the building at Baldwin to further advance the futures of students in Martinsville-Henry County and beyond,” Dickens read.
During the discussion of Crabtree’s proposal, multiple motions were made and withdrawn to approve, table, send it to an NCI committee, or to the NCI Workforce and Academics Committee for revision.
From a discussion perspective and with what it set forth in the committees, Jones said he didn’t think any idea must die, “but ideas have to follow the process and come through committees. And if a process needs to go back to a committee to go through committee, which this didn’t come through committee, that’s where we wouldn’t have an idea die. We’d have an idea continue to be worked on until it’s ready for the full board,” he said.
Marcus Stone said many on the NCI board are cheerleaders in the community.
“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,” Stone said.
With the way the proposal came about, Stone said he was hesitant to make a decision based on the process and the information and data presented.
“I feel like that’s my responsibility to make a good, smart decision for the community. We invested a lot of time in a lot of ways and a lot of places, and quite frankly, in what I do in my 9 to 5, we look at our mission statement,” he said.
To serve NCI’s mission statement as a fiduciary party and as someone with responsibility to the community, Stone said he lacked the data and the material needed to make a sound decision.
Del. Destiny LeVere Bolling, D-Henrico, agreed.
“I think that we are lacking data, I think that we are lacking process. Just as in the legislature, how we go about things, we put forth studies to study things, and we crunch the numbers. We bring in all the stakeholders, which, based on public comment and from other conversations I’ve had, it seems as though we’ve had a lack of bringing in all the stakeholders throughout this resolution writing,” she said.
State Sen. Kannan Srinivasan, D-Ashburn, said the resolution requires more work and needs to go through the committee process. “That process and that discipline and that scrubbing is very important for a decision of this magnitude. I hope we will get a chance to do that exact thing,” he said.
NCI was established by law, and the General Assembly ultimately decides its governance.
In addition to this process, Ashley Lockhart said the Virginia Community College State Board would need to be looped into the process.
“This would very likely need to be also endorsed by their board and voted on by their board. I wanted to make that also clear to everyone that even an endorsement of this is just a first step in a many, many-step process,” Lockhart said.
Lee Prillaman said it’s frustrating going into the community as an NCI board member.
“As a board member, we’ve talked about getting community input, having engagement with the community. Talked about whether we should or are required to do strategic planning, and we took zero action on it for the last couple of years,” he said.
In addition, Prillaman said he feels part of the responsibility of a board member is to get input from the community.
“Our community, I feel, has spoken very loudly. I have not, granted canvassed everybody in the community, but a lot of these organizations that we had conversations with were very clear that there was a point in time where they stopped supporting NCI and were anxious to find a way to start supporting NCI and the activities and staff that we have here,” Prillaman said, adding Crabtree’s proposal was an idea that bubbled up from those discussions.
Jones said the belief of the Martinsville-Henry County Academic Foundation that P&HCC converting NCI into a college-run institution would be in line with its mission flaws the entire document.
“Because there was a conversation had with an organization that we have a legal conversation … we’ve been legally in battle with for more than a year. In this statement, it says they believe, so who had the conversation with the Martinsville-Henry County Academic Foundation to find out what they believe, if it wasn’t me,” he said.
NCI is currently in a legal battle with the foundation, its former fundraising foundation, over ownership of approximately $15 million. The foundation changed its mission about three years ago to support funding education in the region instead of just NCI.
As the longest tenured board member, Jones said there’s always been an opportunity for the public to address the board and give their comments.
“I went through all of the minutes from all of the meetings that I’ve been a part of, and I’ve never seen or heard anyone come to the board and say they were dissatisfied with what NCI was doing for this community,” Jones said.
During discussions on a course of action, Prillaman said the community is strongly sending NCI a message. “If we choose to ignore it, shame on us,” he said.
Bolling asked for clarification, “because I’m reading through this proposal for the umpteenth time and I’m seeing four organizations listed. So, is that who we’re using as the community in this conversation, because I am not sure that is necessarily representative of the community, particularly when” earlier in the meeting “several organizations who actually work with NCI” spoke “so highly of the work that they’re able to accomplish because of NCI’s existence,” she said.
Before tabling the proposal, the board also heard from two of its former members.
Naomi Hodge-Muse said there’s confusion about NCI’s future and if it’s going to be turned over to P&HCC. “The rumors are tremendous, they’re out there, and it is heartbreaking. When Harvest (Foundation) walked away and reneged on its agreement to fund New College … and Senator Stanley was able to get us backing from the state and we were able to stay open,” she said.
Hodge-Muse said NCI sits on Baldwin’s block, the heart of Martinsville’s black community.
“The black community was not talked to. No representative of our community was spoken to. This was just out of the clear blue – we just need to disband. It’s wrong, and it’s wrong-hearted,” she said.
Hodge-Muse believes there are too many opportunities for NCI to be abandoned, and so many things can be done with it. Eight years ago, she said she pleaded with the board to sue the Harvest Foundation for reneging on a promise made to the state.
“We had all these lawyers on the board, and yet none of them saw fit to sue them, and they should have been taken to court. That didn’t happen. Now they’re still reneging on the money, and not one of them has a PhD, not one of them has the educational background to determine any curriculum for a university or a college,” she said.
Three years ago, Richard Hall, former board chairman, said the same ideas in Crabtree’s proposal were proposed by a different administration.
“Senator (Bill) Stanley and I had an outside analysis performed to determine exactly where Patrick & Henry stood in the Virginia Community College System,” and presented those findings in Richmond. “The facts were clear: Patrick & Henry was in no position to take over NCI, and NCI had a unique codified mission that could not be folded into the community college system,” he said.
Hall said the proposal died immediately after the facts were presented.
After learning the proposal was revived, Hall filed a FOIA request to determine the analysis and data Crabtree used. “What I found out is there was none. There was no analysis, no study, no measurable data. What was called an independent analysis was simply a facade presented as fact to solicit support before this board ever had a chance to review it,” he said.
Hall said Crabtree’s actions were premature, unauthorized, and in direct violation of his fiduciary duty to NCI and its bylaws and Code of Ethics.
“Equally troubling, the FOIA shows Dr. Crabtree reached out directly to the chair of the Martinsville-Henry County Academic Foundation, suggesting those funds that are housed there be moved to Patrick Henry’s Foundation,” Hall said, adding the contact was unauthorized by the NCI board’s own vote, which states that only its chairman is permitted to engage with the Academic Foundation.
The entire three-hour meeting can be viewed at Youtube.com/NewCollegeInstitute.
