In 1991, I walked the stage for my degree from Virginia Wesleyan College. The experience from those four years leading up to that day I can’t imagine anywhere else. I found Virginia Wesleyan to be a unique mix of what I found Hampton Roads to be in that fall of 1987 — a little urban and a little rural. It had a character I didn’t find elsewhere.
There I met a gentleman named Lambuth Clarke, president of Virginia Wesleyan. He noticed I was from Philadelphia and asked me a historical question about Philly that I embarrassingly didn’t know.
I ran to the library to find the answer and stopped by his office soon after to tell him. Clarke, of course, knew. But he said to me, “That’s what education is. It’s not knowing the answer. It’s the pursuit of finding it.”
I always remembered that. He always seemed to know every student by name. And Jane at the switchboard always seemed to know where every student on campus happened to be. And Dean Buckingham was always available, even if he was going on his daily runs. And to this day I owe so much of my professional progress to Kathy Merlock Jackson, Ph.D., and her teaching of media fundamentals that hold true today despite technological advances.
I’m just one of many Wesleyan graduates with memories of our alma mater. From Air Bands to Rose Beach to the Snack Bar, it was our home.
This week, our home was sold.
In gratitude to the fortunes donated over the years by the Batten family, Virginia Wesleyan University will become Batten University.
I know the historical precedents. Harvard University was named after John Harvard, clergyman and first benefactor. Yale University took its name from Elihu Yale who donated substantial sums for construction. I get it. Bankroll the college and get your name on it.
But those decisions were in those colleges’ infancies, not more than 50 years into their existence. Could anyone imagine a name change being bought at those institutions today?
The decision was the unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees, which immediately gave me pause. My Wesleyan professors frequently taught me to be wary of unanimity because it usually means the question hadn’t been vetted enough. Dissent was of value. A unanimous vote likely means that dissenting voices weren’t included.
The response of alumni, almost universally in dissent, shows that lesson holds true.
I’ve joined those voices, but I understand that change happens in life, and loyal voices from the past don’t reach the same volume of a billionaire philanthropist. My dissent likely won’t rewrite this chapter.
Nothing against the Batten family, but the talking point that this renaming will elevate the university’s national and global status is silly. The Battens are a Hampton Roads commodity. Any national presence was sold off years ago. Indeed, the Battens have a great and storied legacy here in Hampton Roads, but that’s where it ends.
But this isn’t a change for national recognition. It’s a financial transaction. For the decades of education of students to rise above the dollars and cents of transactional pursuits, Virginia Wesleyan hypocritically shouted, “We can be bought.”
Now students can attend Batten University and maybe join the Batten Honors College and hang out in the Batten Center. It’s all a bit much. I’m half-expecting the baseball team to practice in the new Batten cages.
And what about those sports teams? The Virginia Wesleyan Marlins will now become the Batten University Marlins. They better not lose lest they become the BUMs.
I’m half-kidding with those comments, but only half. A sellout such as this of Virginia Wesleyan’s legacy deserves a few jabs since it got little from its lockstep trustees.
But Virginia Wesleyan died last week. The values our college home taught us over decades were wiped away by a checkbook. That shouldn’t go unnoticed, unmourned and unregretted.
Brian Kirwin of Virginia Beach is the president of Kirwin Development Strategies.
https://www.dailypress.com/2025/08/26/column-virginia-wesleyan-sold-its-legacy-sold-out-alumni/
