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The Assembly is putting storm coverage outside of our paywall and making it free to republish in any local or regional outlet.
The students called it the poop crew.
When Hurricane Helene interrupted water service in Swannanoa, a town of 5,000 about 20 minutes outside of Asheville, Warren Wilson College had a sewage problem. The school brought in portable toilets to prepare for the storm, but there weren’t enough for all of Warren Wilson’s 750 students, so many people still had to use indoor toilets after they lost power and water, said Damián Fernández, the school’s president. Except they couldn’t flush them.
A group of students volunteered to help. The new team—Fernández prefers the more clinical “sanitation crew”—collected water from two old wells, carrying it in buckets to the toilets around campus, providing the water needed to flush.
Experiences like that give Fernández hope. “What we have seen in the past 10 days gives me assurance that we will come out of this stronger,” he said on Monday. “But we must work at it. It’s not predetermined.”
Helene brought historic floods and hurricane-force winds to Western North Carolina at a time when small, regional colleges across the country are already suffering from metaphorical headwinds. At least 37 nonprofit colleges across the country closed in the past two years, and most were tuition-dependent private schools.
Add last year’s bungled roll-out of the federal financial aid application, declining numbers of high-school graduates, and growing doubts about the value of college, and a catastrophic storm is the last thing these schools needed.
But Fernández isn’t alone in his optimism.
Leaders at two other small, private North Carolina mountain schools—Lees-McRae College and Montreat College, both around 820 students—had a similar take. To them, the storm revealed the benefits of a tight-knit community.
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The Personal Touch
Helene left Lees-McRae students stranded in Banner Elk. Normally a picturesque 75-mile drive northeast through the Pisgah National Forest from Asheville, the college was surrounded by impassable roads in the days after the storm. The community hunkered down. Eventually, the college arranged for supplies to be flown in on helicopters.
As emergency crews got major roads open, the college evacuated its students. The final seven couldn’t evacuate by car, so the National Guard airlifted them out. Their pets—two birds, two cats, and a snake—came too. Lees-McRae staff and trustees offered support and housing to those who didn’t have anywhere else they could go.
“I’ve seen alumni mobilize to see what they can do to further support the college,” said Lees-McRae president Herbert King. “Our trustees have been phenomenal in providing extra gifts to help support and really shore up our operations. Many people are reaching out from all over the country.”
“If you’re not an elite institution, the only other way to thrive is to be distinctive and unique.”
Herbert King, president of Lees-McRae College
But in a sign of the challenges facing the schools, a few hours after The Assembly spoke to King, Banner Elk encouraged residents to evacuate because of damage to the sewer system. A town spokesperson couldn’t say when repairs would be complete.
Entire Swannanoa neighborhoods were destroyed, homes “completely and entirely erased.” Montreat is under curfew and a boil water advisory.
Yet Lees-McRae has already resumed online classes and Montreat starts on October 14. Warren Wilson will resume October 21, which is the week all three colleges hope to bring students back in person.
Ultimately, the state of local infrastructure will determine whether that’s possible.
Embracing Smaller Size
Leaders of all three schools say the key to surviving is to be unlike anyone else. Size is part of that.
“I’m the product of a big state university,” said Montreat president Paul Maurer. “I had 900 students in my freshman biology class. My first two years, I was a number.”
While those schools can also create communal experiences, Maurer said, small colleges like Montreat are different.
“There’s a personal nature, a known nature, of a small school that is incredibly appealing to students,” he said. “What they have, the storm interrupted. And they want to get back to it.”
King made a similar argument: “One of the things I say all the time is, ‘If you’re not an elite institution, the only other way to thrive is to be distinctive and unique.’”
Increasing enrollment and retention show that Lees-McRae is just that, he added. The same can be said for Montreat, a “Christ-centered” liberal arts college that emphasizes its cybersecurity program and has had record enrollments for nine out of the past 10 years.
Warren Wilson, though, struggled in that time, implementing pay cuts in 2016 and laying off 20 people to close a budget deficit the following year. Enrollment has grown since, but the school is still making big changes.
Fernández, who was hired last year, cut tuition 40 percent. Already notable for its work program that requires students to help run the college, Warren Wilson also began guaranteeing an internship for every student—the first college in the nation to do so, Fernández said. In truly ironic timing, the college also built on its well-known environmental focus by launching a new master’s program in applied climate studies this year.
As the schools navigate a crisis situation that changes daily, tracking infrastructure repairs and moving courses online, the colleges have to continue making their pitch to next year’s prospective students. Recruitment season has already begun, and admissions counselors are on the road, visiting college fairs.
Given that their mountain locations are a major part of their draw, it’s only natural that students would have doubts about whether the region will recover before next fall.
“This early in the recruiting game, I don’t anticipate that’s going to hurt us,” King said. “Now if this drags on for a long period of time, then it may. But right now I’m really optimistic that we’re not going to miss a beat on our admissions recruiting.”
Airlifts and poop crews may not be the traditional pitch to high school students, but it just might be what small colleges are best poised to provide—and the best option in this climate.
“Many students did not want to leave,” said Fernández. “That shows the power of this institution.”
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