Regional Projects

We respond to requests for support in areas where we have programs and capabilities that can help meet community economic development needs. We believe those contributions will strengthen our faculty and expand the horizons of our students. 

We understandably have the widest range of programs near the main campus and in the Greater Williamsburg area.   Governments in the area have expressed interest in diversifying their economic bases, including more emphasis on technology-based companies. They have also expressed interest in the economic vitality of the urban core around the W&M campus.  William and Mary is collaborating in that strategic planning process.  The William and Mary Foundation is a partner in the development of the 300-acre New Town mixed use community adjacent to the west end of campus.  The College is collaborating in the development of the Discovery Center project to collocate the Office of Economic Development, the Technology and Business Center, and the William and Mary Research Institute with two high-technology classrooms and the regional workforce development director of the Thomas Nelson Community College, and the James City County Office of Economic Development.  We hope to use that Discovery Center as a catalyst for broader economic development collaboration.  

In addition to those continuing economic development collaborations near the main campus, William and Mary has selected four economic development projects for emphasis in 2007-2008.  They include projects dealing with the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton Roads Technology Clusters, City of Portsmouth, and the City of Petersburg.

Our Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester leads our efforts to contribute to the environment and economy of the Chesapeake Bay region.  The Bay is an important natural resource that helps support Virginia’s fishing industry, which in 2004 contributed $1.26 billion in revenue and 13,285 related jobs. The commercial fishing component of some $440 million in revenue has declined about one quarter over the past decade.  This trend has had an economic impact on communities around the Bay.  The Commonwealth's 2006-2008 budget includes more than $200 million to clean up the Bay in an effort to reach the 2010 standards to get off the EPA "impaired waters" list. The focus is on turbidity, dissolved oxygen levels, and chlorophyll.

The Applied Research Center and the evening MBA program in Newport News anchor our involvement down the Peninsula and Southside, centered on collaborations with NASA Langley, Jefferson Laboratory, National Institute for Aerospace, and high-technology companies in fields such as materials science, sensing, and imaging.   Hampton Roads has a number of major research assets in the area of materials science, including NASA Langley (NASA’s center of excellence for materials) and the Jefferson Laboratory with its continuous electron beam accelerator facility and the related free electron laser. The Hampton Roads Partnership, the Hampton Roads Research Partnership, the Hampton Roads Technology Council and the Hampton Roads Incubator have all been working together to link companies to the research in the federal laboratories and universities. These efforts support the work of the Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance in attracting new companies to the region. William and Mary has accepted the lead responsibility in linking Hampton Roads companies and researchers in the area of sensors. Our Technology and Business Center serves as a business accelerator for the region, particularly in support of the Hampton Roads Incubator and its new branch in James City County.

We have responded to requests from the City of Portsmouth to help them design and implement strategic plans to build a World Class Maritime Center.   The City has a wonderful port and expanding terminal operations. The Maersk Corporation is making a major investment of roughly $450 million to open a new container terminal, and that will create significant new opportunities.  The City has initiated long term planning aimed at leveraging its strengths as a port city to expand economic development.  William and Mary has agreed to support the strategic planning process.

In late 2005, the College of William and Mary elected to approach the City of Petersburg to propose a community and economic development partnership.  The selection of Petersburg by a steering committee of William and May was driven by three primary factors:  Petersburg's size deemed appropriate for the planned engagement), the community's extreme distress and the College's preexisting commitment to Petersburg (home to Richard Bland College and the College of William and Mary).  The proposed partnership offered Petersburg access to significant resources for revitalization and the College new opportunities for its administrators, faculty, and students, as well as an opportunity to satisfy the specific restructuring obligation of engaging a community that "lags the Commonwealth in education, income, employment, and other factors."  The partnership was also consistent with William and Mary's commitment to support economic development.

William and Mary is positioned to make significant contributions through research and strategic alliances in the area of Modeling and Simulation.  A scan of recent William and Mary research reveals that sixteen academic departments have faculty who have research interests and/or external funding for projects that can be classified as Modeling and Simulation.  The primary areas of Modeling and Simulation emphasis at William and Mary are coastal wind-driven water levels (including waves), transportation equations for satisfactory homeostatis and/or re-optimization of seriously perturbed networks, and next generation virtual environments.