In the past decade Lynchburg and Liberty have experienced major growth.
Since 1992 Liberty has grown 783 percent, with incoming freshman numbers growing for the past few years and a myriad of expansions and construction growing the campus. Liberty’s endowment reached $1 billion last year and was recognized for having the third-fastest growing one in the United States between 2016 and 2017.
Lynchburg is currently experiencing its own renaissance, as they are improving and remodeling many roads and buildings. They have also adopted the Downtown Lynchburg 2040 Master Plan, a blueprint for what the city will look like in 22 years.
That being said, Lynchburg still has many struggles. They are fighting against poverty and struggling with funds for the city.
Liberty is an outspoken Christian university and does a lot of good for the community, but there are still ways they could do better to serve Hill City.
Financial
According to the city’s website, Lynchburg struggles greatly with poverty.
The city’s poverty rate is 23.1 percent, with a household median income of $39,589. This is 9.6 percent higher than the national poverty rate compared to Charlottesville, Roanoke and Portsmouth.
These numbers do not mean Liberty is not helping Lynchburg at all. A recent report shows Liberty has a $1 billion economic impact on the state, and much of that will go into its host city. They create thousands of jobs and are a real benefit to the community.
What I’m saying is that if Liberty wants to make a more lasting financial contribution to the city of Lynchburg, they need to use their money more strategically.
By setting up employment programs Liberty can help train Lynchburg residents for better paying jobs and more fruitful employment opportunities. I am not saying Liberty should be handing out free educations, but providing programs where people can receive training that will make a significant difference in their resume so they can find more gainful employment.
Service
Liberty does an admirable job of emphasizing community service.
Each LU student is required to perform 20 hours of community service per semester, commonly known as CSER. According to LU Serve Associate Director Timothy Yonts, Liberty students put in 500,000 hours of community service annually. While not all of this is going toward Lynchburg, the student’s involvement with the community is a benefit to the city.
But it is not enough.
Something I noticed as a student was how many simple community service options there were that contribute to that 500,000. I never really got invested with an organization through CSER, as with my busy schedule I usually looked for something that would best fit my needs and time constraints.
Students can either choose to volunteer at organizations that utilize students to benefit the community like the Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center or the Lynchburg Lighthouse Community Center, or they can sign up for simpler opportunities like Scaremare, where it is likely students will spend their 20 hours standing in a dark corner trying to look spooky or sitting on a bus making howling noises.
Liberty needs to emphasize more meaningful community service opportunities and make sure the force of good that students can accomplish in the community is not squandered.
Community
In my four years at Liberty I have seen both the school and city change drastically.
Whenever there was a new building opened, project announced or interesting event happening on campus, the students would be abuzz with chatter and speculation.
Whenever Lynchburg went through a major change, many students had no idea.
Knowledge is power, and it would be extremely beneficial for Liberty to update students on their local community during mass gatherings so that they know how to best reach out to their community.
The city also needs to find better ways to connect with Liberty students. Given how many times large numbers of students are gathered together like Campus Community or Convocation, Lynchburg has many opportunities to reach a large number of students, with Liberty’s permission.
Liberty is big on service and helping others. They send their students all over the world on mission trips and find many ways to reach out from Lynchburg.
But for Liberty to emulate Jesus Christ in their hometown, they need to take a minute away from foreign ministry and support to look in their own backyard.
