According to a recent study conducted by the Institute of International Education, the College of William and Mary has the highest percentage of undergraduate students who choose to study abroad of all public doctorate institutions in the United States.

The IIE’s Open Doors 2011 Report showed that 43.9 percent of students at the College have studied abroad in the 2009-10 academic year. This is a 3.6 percent increase from 2008-09, when the percentage was 40.3, following a 6 percent decrease from 2007-08, when the percentage peaked at 46.3.

These numbers correspond with the national trends indicated by the report. Overall, numbers slowed down after the economic downturn beginning in 2007, but began increasing again in 2009-10.

“I think we’ve been paying attention to this for a long time,” Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and associate professor of Hispanic studies Silvia Tandeciarz said about the popularity of study abroad at the College. “I think that as a liberal arts college we emphasize — maybe more than other state institutions, I don’t know — the importance of breadth and depth in our education, and part of that breadth is an international exposure. I think that the faculty deserve a tremendous amount of credit because they are constantly recruiting students for study abroad programs.”

Tandeciarz is the faculty liaison for the semester study abroad program in La Plata, Argentina and participates in the governance of study abroad programs at the College.

“I don’t see how you could be educated to be a citizen in the 21st century without some kind of global understanding and global perspective,” Tandeciarz said.

Tandeciarz attributed the College’s preponderance of students who study abroad in part to the nature of the student population and in part to the unique opportunities that students receive abroad.

“I think that our students tend to think about the global reality that they’re engaged in and are very active in terms of finding ways to make it possible to study abroad, whether it’s over the summer or on semester-long programs or even short research trips,” Tandeciarz said. “I think where there’s been a lot of growth has been in faculty-mentored research abroad. The culture of study abroad, I would say, has shifted over the years to more intense mentored undergraduate research experiences, where students aren’t simply going abroad and immersing themselves in the culture and the language and living with host families and studying in classes — sometimes with foreign nationals, other times just with American students — but they’re also going abroad thinking about original research that they can undertake in the field and so using that experience as a lab where they’re pursuing independent research questions under the guidance of faculty mentors. And I think that’s really very exciting and something that’s very special about [the College] in particular and our study abroad [programs].”

Kelsey Conway ’12 agreed, citing the students and the opportunities available to them as the reasons behind the College’s superior ranking.

“I think it’s the students and then the students mixed with the opportunities that we have available for us here [that] really make it so that we have a good study abroad program,” Conway said.

Though many students clearly do take advantage of the study abroad opportunities that the College has to offer, others feel as though obstacles such as finances, major requirements and extracurricular commitments impede them from going abroad. However, there are several solutions to these problems.

“I’m on the golf team here, so I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to go abroad during the semester,” Conway, who spent the summer after her freshman year in Galway, Ireland, said. “I knew that the only time I would be able to do anything would be over the summer.”

Originally, Conway’s interest lay not in study abroad, but just in visiting Ireland.

“It wasn’t really to have the study abroad experience; it was more to visit Ireland specifically, but it turned out that I got a lot more out of doing it by studying abroad than going to visit personally,” Conway said.

The faculty of the College is also trying to make study abroad more accessible to those who believe it to be beyond their reach.

Meanwhile, the Wendy and Emery Reves Center for International Studies is working to advocate and facilitate study abroad for students.

“I think it is getting the message out there over and over that this can be a really important part of your academic course, and then once students are convinced, helping them work out those practical problems — the finances, the academics — getting over those hurdles,” Theresa Johansson, assistant director of the Global Education Office at the Reves Center, said.

Tuition troubles at the College of William and Mary have reached beyond campus grounds, sparking debate in The Washington Post.

In a Nov. 6 op-ed piece in The Post entitled “Invisible Hand at William and Mary,” Peter Galuszka criticized College President Taylor Reveley’s ideas about conserving College resources by allowing the market to set tuition rates.

“This imbalance [in state support in education] has put pressure on the schools to push hard for out-of-state students attracted by the Virginia schools’ academic standards and pleasant campuses,” Galuska wrote.
“It also makes it harder for in-staters to win admittance. This can make for tears and gnashing of teeth in the spring when acceptance letters go out. (Full disclosure, I am a U.Va. parent).”

While the state provided 43 percent of the College’s funding in 1981, it now provides a mere 13 percent of the school’s budget. Over the past 30 years, tuition increases have become a fact of life for College students.

“A serious move back toward the support of a generation ago would be manna from heaven,” Reveley said in an email. “There isn’t the remotest possibility of this happening, however. Other demands on state revenues are too great. The era of significant state support is over, in my judgment.”

The strategy, explained by Reveley in an interview with Virginia Business magazine, is part of a new financial model stemming from the College’s Six Year Plan released in October 2011.

“The six-year plan doesn’t contemplate ‘market tuition’ for in-state students, however, simply a step toward their contributing more of what it actually costs to educate them,” Reveley said in an email. “At present there is a huge gap between what in-state and out-of-state students pay. We need to narrow it some, now that the state has cut back so much on the subsidy it provides for in-state students. While we have already drawn near to what it’s realistic to charge out-of-state students, we’re not all the way there yet. Thus, out-of-state tuition is likely to increase some, too, next spring.”

The current price tag of a College education hovers at $22,024 for in-state students and $44,854 for out-of-state students per year, yet it currently costs the College several thousand dollars more to educate one College student than what the state and tuition provide.

“In 1906, W&M deeded its real estate to the Commonwealth, and we’re now firmly and irreparably part of the state system,” Reveley said. “What we need is for the state to let the College use its strength in the market place to support itself, since the state taxpayers are no longer able to do so.”

Galuszka’s piece prompted Rector of the College and chairman of the Board of Visitors Jeffery Trammell to respond with another op-ed piece in The Washington Post supporting Reveley’s statements.

“Those who benefit from the university must make up the bulk of the lost state support,” Trammell wrote in the op-ed. “An essential component of our new funding model, however, will be to devote a considerable portion of any increased tuition revenue to financial aid for students from middle-class Virginia families who need it most.”

Financial aid has not kept pace with what other universities offer.

“I’ve had folks telling me that all things being equal they like W&M better but they couldn’t get financial aid so they went elsewhere. We really need to be competitive with this,” Trammell said. “Also, if I’ve got a bright young professor that’s getting offers from the best universities in the country how are we going to keep them if we don’t have the money to keep them? If were not charging market value?”

In Virginia Business magazine, Reveley said that out-of-state tuition was nearing its “saturation point,” making in-state tuition the most likely to rise.

According to Vice President for Finance Sam Jones ’75, M.B.A. ’80, this could mean in-state tuition increasing to the rates similar to schools of comparable quality. While Jones said that in-state tuition would not near that of the current cost of out-of-state students, the price tag for a Virginia student to attend the College would have to increase in order to compensate for a lack of funding.

“If the state came in tomorrow and offered us more money, we wouldn’t raise tuition. This is a matter of necessity,” Jones said.

Trammell noted that, if passed, the plan would increase tuition prices gradually over time.

“The Board’s commitment is the quality of William and Mary. People come to the College because of its excellence, they don’t come there because it’s the cheapest school in the country, and that shouldn’t be our goal. Our goal should be to provide a great education with financial aid for middle-income families. We just can’t sustain that educational model without greater resources,” Trammell said.

The administration has sent its financial model to the Virginia General Assembly for review. If passed and approved, the plan will be given to the Board of Visitors for a final decision in April.

“We won’t know what’s going to happen to W&M tuition until the BOV actually sets it next spring,” Reveley said in an email. “There is no meaningful way now of predicting how the state of the national economy and of Virginia politics are going to play out over the next five months or so.”

Despite Galuska’s warning that the College is paving the way to go private with such a strategy, Jones denies that this option is on the table. In order to privatize, the College would need to buy all its buildings and grounds back from the state with a price tag of more than $2 billion, after receiving approval from the state to break away.

“Privatizing is not anything we are proposing right now,” Jones said. “You can do the math and make the numbers work out, but politically, it’s not something we are promoting at all.”

For now, the College’s primary strategies to address its financial situation are making operations more efficient and encouraging alumni donations.

Richmond politics are heating up once again in preparation for the 2012 Virginia General Assembly session, which is scheduled to begin in January. The newly reinstated Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment (R-3) is advocating another examination of the layout of the state’s representation districts.

Redistricting occurs in each state every 10 years if the census results indicate that reapportionment is needed. Norment and his Republican peers —who now effectively control both houses of the General Assembly — are using this as justification for another reevaluation.

However, some are expressing concerns that minority party politicians could refuse to come to the session, denying the majority party the quorum required to call a vote, as has happened before in Texas.
Norment is particularly upset with the new layout of his district.

“It’s ridiculous the way they’ve spread it out,” Norment said in a statement. “I represent twelve jurisdictions, stretching from Suffolk to King and Queen County.”

The City of Williamsburg was also removed from Norment’s district and placed in that of Sen. John Miller (D-1).

Many expressed concerns regarding where Williamsburg would eventually be placed.
Williamsburg Mayor and professor of economics Clyde Haulman went so far as to write to the governor during the process earlier this year, expressing his concerns over the possibility of splitting the city between two districts.

“I do not understand the motivation to go after Williamsburg,” Young Democrats President Katie Deabler ’12 said. “Localities being split is a serious concern.”

Miller is less concerned about the new maps. He believes that there are more important issues to be considered by the General Assembly.

“I’ve just spent two days with the Senate Finance Committee,” Miller said in a statement. “The Commonwealth has some big problems. People want us to concentrate on transportation, education and filling the budget gap, not revisiting redistricting.”

The redistricting done in the last General Assembly session earlier this year was not accomplished easily. Governor Bob McDonnell (R) proceeded to authorize Executive Order 31, creating a Bipartisan Advisory Commission on Redistricting.

Law students and undergraduates from the College were on the teams selected in a Governor’s Commission competition for redistricting, and the council considered their plans.

After the Commission’s recommendations, the legislature submitted a plan to McDonnell.
The redistricting done in the last General Assembly session earlier this year was not accomplished easily.

The governor was offered one option by the General Assembly where both houses planned redistricting separately.

This was at a time when Democrats controlled the State Senate and Republicans controlled the House of Delegates. Voicing concerns over the legality of the final product and the large number of cities it divided, McDonnell vetoed the plan.

The plan was redrafted, sent to McDonnell again and approved.

“They obviously had their own agenda when they were moving forward with it,” Alex Bramsen ’12, one undergraduate team member, said at the time of the original redistricting. “We were grateful to Senator Miller, but realistically we knew that we were not going to receive the level of serious consideration that would be required.”