Facing opposition from students, faculty and staff, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors last week punted on a plan to dismantle the university’s popular and celebrated living-learning communities.
Often touted as a selling point in Virginia Tech’s recruiting efforts, the living-learning programs group students together around common interests. Current examples include living-learning communities (or LLCs for short) for first-generation and transfer students, while others are built around areas of study such as arts or engineering. But the board is now questioning the efficacy of the overall program.
The board resolution to shut the program down argued that metrics “do not support a measurable difference” between students in LLCs and the overall student population. Further, it noted many of the support services in the living-learning program are duplicative and shutting it down will generate “significant cost savings.”
Beyond efficacy, the proposal also aims to address a problem most college leaders would envy: Virginia Tech is growing and needs more beds for its burgeoning freshman population. (Last fall, VT enrolled 38,995 students across all of its locations and welcomed a freshman class of 7,088.) The decision to shut down LLCs would reallocate “all available on-campus residential hall beds to first-year undergraduate students and first-year transfer students,” according to the resolution. Restricting limited housing stock to first-year students would ultimately push others off campus and into the private housing market.
But affected students are concerned about the loss of such communities, and faculty are skeptical about supposed cost savings. Local officials are also worried about how pushing more students into family neighborhoods could reshape Blacksburg, which has a population of around 45,000. Underlying the move—which has been supported by a local real estate developer who sits on the university’s board and owns multiple apartment buildings near campus—are questions about a potential conflict of interest and who benefits.
Mounting Opposition
The proposal to eliminate LLCs emerged after several years of deliberations over expanding campus housing. Previously, Virginia Tech planned to add a substantial number of beds through a project known as the Student Life Village, which the Board of Visitors approved in 2022. But that plan was rescinded by the board last year. Now the board has shifted its focus to renovating existing facilities and adding fewer beds than planned.
As the board deliberates the fate of the living-learning program, which could be restructured or shut down by 2027, it has run into opposition from all sides, particularly from students who cherish such programs.
Emma Roshioru, president of the Undergraduate Student Senate, told Inside Higher Ed by email that she has heard from multiple students who want to preserve the living-learning communities, which many see as integral to their undergraduate experience at Virginia Tech.
“Whether it be through the mentorship they gained from upperclassmen in these communities or it be the faculty relationships they built from day one at the university, Living-Learning Programs make what can feel like an enormous campus very small, which is made possible through belonging to a community of students with similar interests and/or backgrounds,” she wrote.
Thomas Feely, the undergraduate representative to the board, who does not have voting power, said at last week’s meeting that he had heard from multiple students who oppose the idea. Many students said the LLC experience is more important to them than Division I athletics, he noted.
Faculty and staff have also spoken against the idea.
At last week’s board meeting, Justin Lemkul, president of the Virginia Tech Faculty Senate, cast doubt on the notion that dismantling such programs would yield significant cost savings. He also noted in his remarks that the board approved pumping $229 million more into athletics last fall.
“I am concerned that dissolution of the Living-Learning Program and its constituent communities would severely damage Virginia Tech’s reputation as a place that fosters community, is responsive to individual students’ interests, and allows them to customize their college experience,” Lemkul wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “Virginia Tech is a large university, and enabling students to associate with communities that share common interests helps make the university feel smaller and more approachable. Moreover, the communities provide students with an educational and social foundation that we believe is critical to their success.”
Local media reported that staff members also spoke out against the resolution at last week’s meeting, expressing concerns that losing such communities would harm recruiting efforts.
Blacksburg mayor Michael Sutphin also panned the plan in a public letter to the board. He wrote that the resolution and other moves by Virginia Tech appear to hint at plans to “substantially increase its freshman class size,” which would in turn boost demand for off-campus housing.
“First-year students may occupy newly available beds for only one year, but absent a commensurate expansion of upper-class housing, many of these students will enter Blacksburg’s limited private housing market for the remainder of their time at Virginia Tech. That pattern would place growing pressure not only on rental supply but also on transportation, utilities, and public safety services planned and financed by the Town rather than the university,” he wrote.
Conflict Concerns
Following the barrage of opposition, Virginia Tech’s board appeared to listen to its critics. While board members decided to postpone the vote, the resolution could resurface at its next meeting.
Virginia Tech officials note that deliberations are ongoing.
“What the outcome of that future conversation will be is unknown. Also to note the university’s review of the program has not yet been completed. What future actions the board will take is also unknown,” university spokesperson Mark Owczarski told Inside Higher Ed by email. “Important work remains to be completed, and university leadership is focused on that work now.”
As the board weighs whether to shutter living-learning communities, speculation has swirled about how the move may benefit one member: Jeanne Stosser, who owns multiple rental properties through Campus Management Group, as well as a firm that builds homes. The university has described her as one of southwest Virginia’s “leading developers and property owners, responsible for a broad range of residential and commercial locations.” Two anonymous sources shared concerns with Inside Higher Ed about how she could benefit from the proposal, and speculation about her motivations has circulated online for at least a year.
Stosser—who supports the plan to shutter LLCs—did not respond to a request for comment. But at last week’s board meeting, she batted down the notion that pushing students off campus would strain Blacksburg. Ultimately, she cast concerns about housing capacity as a nonissue.
“In the next three years, there’s a lot of housing that’s going to be off campus. And Blacksburg has ample utility capacity to take care of all of those,” she said, according to local media reports.
Stosser, a major GOP donor, was appointed to the board by former Republican governor Glenn Youngkin in 2024. It is unclear how or if she is responding to concerns about how she stands to benefit from a move that would push students off campus and potentially into her rental units.
Asked about such concerns, Owczarski pointed to Virginia code and board bylaws relating to conflicts of interest. He added that Virginia law “provides a path for any board member to recuse themselves if there is a conflict” and that “all board members are reminded of these annually.”
Town-Gown Tensions
Given the many issues boards handle, including housing issues and major construction projects, experts say it is common to see trustees appointed from the real estate and development world. But housing concerns can often be among the most thorny in town-gown relationships.
Stephen Gavazzi, an Ohio State University professor and expert on town-gown relations, told Inside Higher Ed by email that “confidence in institutions is increasingly fragile.” While he noted that a study he is leading “indicates that concerns about bias—particularly in the classroom—are widespread in higher education,” that can also spill over into governance. He added that when trustees make decisions that seem aligned with their outside interests, it “can raise broader questions about fairness and independence” that risk further damaging trust in the sector.
To Gavazzi, even if there is no clear conflict of interest, perception matters.
“So the risk here may be less about legality and more about legitimacy,” he wrote. “In a moment when trust in higher education is already tenuous, boards that don’t clearly wall off trustees with potential conflicts risk hardening public doubts that can linger long after a vote is taken.”
