Next week, the College of William & Mary’s Board of Visitors will meet for the first time this academic year. You can see the agenda and prep materials here. Please note the above photo is not the room they’ll meet in, but it sure is pretty.

Before you go any further, write to the BOV today and let them know what’s on your mind before next Thursday. Visit our Get in touch with the College page if you need ideas.

But we also looked at the agenda. Three things jumped out at us from W&M’s Six-Year Plan, which they’re required to approve (probably on Sept. 24) and send back to Richmond.

First: it was heartening to see the following almost totally true statements find a spot in the Six-Year Plan, under “greatest strengths”: 

“W&M provides students with the most personal, highest quality liberal arts & sciences education of any public university in the nation. Small class sizes and close student-faculty partnerships ensure robust applied learning opportunities. … W&M cultivates creative thinkers, principled leaders, and compassionate global citizens equipped for lives of meaning and distinction. 

It’s, again, like they almost get it. We encourage the Board to approve that, at the very least.

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Second: the lack of vision in aforementioned plan.

We’re nearing the end of 2026, which means we’re also nearing the end of Vision 2026 — a sort of interim strategic plan that focused on water, data, democracy and careers as America celebrated the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The Today Show came to campus, Patton Oswalt ’91, D.A. ’23 was there, and W&M made its case for primacy —maybe even preeminence — in the national revolutionary imagination. Mission definitely over, maybe even accomplished. Time for a new vision and some more imagination.

So why is the proposed Six-Year Plan — which one would assume carries W&M into 2032 — just more water, data, democracy and careers?

The Gale can’t and won’t argue that those four topics are insignificant. But for the next six years — beyond the college years of today’s brand-new freshmen, beyond the end of the current presidential administration, beyond any likely fundraising campaign — surely we could think a little harder about the future.

But maybe this is just a stop-gap document to meet a filing deadline. Maybe we’ll get a real vision when the ongoing work for the next Strategic Plan is complete.

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Third: is the long decade of rapidly growing enrollment over? Let’s hear it from the plan itself:

• “From Fall 2020 to Fall 2025, W&M enrollment grew by 7.4% (+658 total students). Online master’s programs accounted for nearly half of the total growth, increasing 49% (+298 students).
• “Undergraduate enrollment grew 10.3% (+715 undergraduate students) during the same span, from fall 2020 to fall 2025.
• “This growth fulfilled the 2018 Board of Visitors-approved plan: to increase undergraduate enrollment by 600 students.
• “As of Fall 2024, that intentional growth plan is complete.“
• The resulting revenue growth enabled W&M to limit tuition increases to well below market levels over the past two years.

This line of reasoning implies that W&M knew its tuition was high and growing too quickly in 2018 (at the start of President Rowe’s tenure), so the BOV grew enrollment to stem the tide. More students paying (comparatively) less seemed better than fewer students paying more. Plus, the enrollment cliff is coming, so might as well cash in while we can.

But elsewhere in the plan, the topic turns to risks. There’s long-term worry about rising operational costs, meeting mandated salary increases and W&M’s ability to “invest in critical strategic initiatives.” One quote was haunting: “without new revenue sources or shifts in public investment, W&M will continue to face tough choices.”

To us, this reads like the BOV changed something at W&M’s core — undergraduate enrollment — to earn some more revenue at a time while there were still lots of young people to enroll. Yet it’s still not enough, and at what cost to the College’s identity?

If the growth is over — the plan also says there are no new campuses, schools or mergers in the works — we may have reached W&M’s “new normal.” But is it still the W&M we love?