FAIRMONT, W.Va. — The Fairmont State University Board of Governors agreed Tuesday on a memorandum of understanding to separate the university and Pierpont Community and Technical College.
The vote came after state legislators tried to push a bill during the legislative session to make the community college part of the university. Pierpont Community and Technical College leaders opposed the legislation.
According to Fairmont State University general counsel Jacqueline Sikora, part of the deal includes Pierpont Community and Technical College moving classes from the Locust Avenue campus in Fairmont over the next two years.
“Fairmont State will take full and exclusive ownership of the Locust Avenue campus and the NAEC campuses,” she explained. “Pierpont will transition their exit from those facilities in June of 2021.”
Fairmont University will also transition operations away from the Caperton Center in Clarksburg and other satellite locations. The decision also impacts the university’s ownership in the joint Braxton County facility.
The university will assume responsibility for the 2006 bond for the Locust Avenue engineering and technology building, and the community college will assume the bond obligation for the Caperton Center and 2012 bond.
“This is a mutually beneficial settlement that finalizes the mandate of the legislature that was enacted 13 years ago that has never been able to put into place,” Fairmont State University President Mirta Martin said. “We will finally be two separate and sovereign institutions with our own individual assets.”
The state will provide $3 million for covering some of the transition costs, in which Pierpont Community and Technical College will get $2.5 million.