Longwood president to retire next year

Patricia P. Cormier, Longwood University's president for the past 13 years, will retire from the job she describes as "a thrill of a lifetime."

Cormier, who will step down June 30, 2010, made the announcement recently at a campus ceremony for the 170th anniversary of Longwood's founding. On Friday, the board of visitors named a 14-member committee to help find her successor.

Cormier, 70, said she will stay on part time for the next two years to help complete Longwood's capital campaign, currently in its "silent phase," which has a goal of raising up to $65 million.

During her tenure at the Farmville university, every academic building on campus with the exception of the music facility has been replaced, updated or is being renovated -- a total of $300 million in construction. Next fall, the school will begin a new nursing program.

But Cormier said she is most proud of raising the stature of Longwood in the hierarchy of Virginia schools and in building that pride in its students.

Longwood's application and acceptance rates for incoming freshmen have remained strong despite the economic downturn, she said.

"When the economy is tough, people go to school," she said. But the university is seeing earlier requests for financial aid packages this spring.

"My guess is the fear factor is out there," she said.

She sees issues of access and affordability as one of the primary challenges her successor will face.

After she retires, Cormier will move to Chapel Hill, N.C., where she and her husband, Raymond, have a home.

She hopes to become a docent at the North Carolina Museum of Art, while her husband, a medieval-literature scholar, plans to take advantage of Chapel Hill's first-class library, she said.

People choose retirement spots for many reasons, but "only my husband would choose it on the basis of a library," she joked.

Contact Karin Kapsidelis at (804) 649-6119 or .