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Capehart to retire from Bluefield State University at end of year

Bluefield State University President Robin Capehart will retire at the end of this year. (Photo courtesy of WV Legislative Photography)

CHARLESTON — Moundsville native Robin Capehart will retire as president of Bluefield State University effective Dec. 31.

The Bluefield State University Board of Governors accepted Capehart’s resignation Thursday. During his remaining time, Capehart will assist the board in transitioning duties to an interim president until a search for a permanent president can begin after the end of the year.

Capehart was selected by the board as the 16th president of then-named Bluefield State College on Sept. 11, 2019. He served as interim president beginning in January 2019 and formally installed as president on Oct. 17, 2020.

“Personally, the time is right for me,” Capehart said in a prepared statement. “I’m newly married and want to spend time with my wife, who has taken advantage of an opportunity in Tennessee, and frankly, I miss her. I’m grateful to the Board of Governors, the Bluefield State University family and the Bluefield community. I wish them the best.”

During Capehart’s tenure, Bluefield State offered on-campus dorm living for the first time in decades, restarted a NCAA Division II football program along with 11 other sports programs and began its first master’s program, which allowed it to add “university” to its title after approval by the Higher Education Policy Commission. Capehart also is credited with turning the university’s finances around and a decade of enrollment declines.

“The Board is extremely grateful to Robin Capehart for his dedicated service to this institution,” said Charlie Cole, chairman of the Board of Governors. “When he arrived in 2019, Bluefield State was experiencing significant stress. Under his leadership, the university is now in a solid financial position. After years of enrollment decline, BSU’s enrollment has grown and stabilized.”

“I am proud of the transformative changes we’ve made to ensure the continued existence and success of Bluefield State University,” Capehart said. “We’ve accomplished a number of goals we set four years ago including the return of on-campus housing, increasing diversity, and the transformation to a University.”

But Capehart’s presidency has not been without controversy. Capehart oversaw the end of the faculty senate and the creation of post-tenure review for professors, resulting in a vote of no confidence in Capehart’s leadership last November.

The Higher Learning Commission, a regional accreditation agency, had a focused visit at Bluefield State in September looking at faculty issues and governance. The commission is expected to soon release a report on these issues.

Originally founded as the Bluefield Colored Institute in 1895, the school specializes in teaching, engineering and nursing. Bluefield State and West Virginia State University at Institute are the last historically Black colleges and universities in the state after Storer College in Harpers Ferry closed in the 1950s. Both Bluefield State and West Virginia State are two of 100 remaining accredited historically Black colleges and universities in the nation.

Capehart is the former president of West Liberty University, a former professor at Marshall University and a Fulbright Scholar. He was secretary of tax and revenue under former Gov. Cecil Underwood in the late 1990s and was chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party in the late 2000s.

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.

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