CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Although the town of Montgomery wasn’t willing to sign a stipulation to not sue West Virginia University over a plan to move WVU Tech from Montgomery to Beckley, they so far have not indicated plans to take legal action. The city council unanimously rejected a measure which has been agreed to by the Kanawha and Fayette County Commissions and the Smithers Town Council.
As a return, WVU has agreed to maintain the buildings on the Montgomery campus to a certain degree and help to attract future tenants to those buildings and other economic development in the upper Kanawha Valley. Despite the Montgomery Council’s failure to support he measure, WVU’s commitment still stands.
“The agreement has been approved by the Fayette County Commission, the Kanawha County Commission, and the city of Smithers,” said WVU Counsel Rob Alsop. “We’re going to do what we are obligated to do under that agreement.”
Alsop, speaking from the legislative session at the Capitol, said the decision by Montgomery was completely understandable. WVU fully anticipated the decision would not be robustly accepted and praised, but he added it had to be done.
“Our fiduciary obligations are to the students and the institution. I know there are some people who don’t like to hear that,” said Alsop. “We have great engineering programs, and terrific faculty so we want this institution to thrive. But the status quo of this institution remaining in Montgomery over the long term won’t be there.”
WVU hopes to start the first freshmen on the Beckley campus this coming fall and allow upper classmen to finish out their college careers at Montgomery before the campus is mothballed.
“We just can’t continue to subsidize the institution the way it has been for the last several year,” said Alsop. “It’s not as if it’s going to say the same. We do not have the unlimited resources to say everything is going to be the way it always was. That’s unfortunately not the way it works, but we are committed to finding a path forward.”