At CNU, his vision became reality. Retiring president Paul Trible reflects on 26 years leading the school.

The quintessential Paul Trible moment for 26 years at Christopher Newport University is not about new buildings or endowment ballooning or graduation rates soaring. It looks like this:

“I’ve seen him so many times, when an old student is visiting, walk up, call them by name, shake hands, ask them how they are doing,” said Jay Paul, director of CNU’s distinctive Honors Program.

CNU’s recent commencements have distinct Trible style, too.

Instead of the usual long speeches and parade of students getting a diploma and a quick handshake, the past two featured a three-minute Trible speech — “probably my shortest” — before sending students and families on a ceremonial tour. It started at the bell tower — where students ring the chimes they rang as freshmen — then headed to the alumni center, where families deposited letters they wrote to the new graduates. The plan is to open them at their 50th reunion.

Then, for the next nine hours, Trible was available so graduates and their families could get diplomas, have a conversation and snap all the photos they want.

“One graduate said: ‘Oh I’m sorry there are so many people with me,’” Trible said. “And I told her, ‘That just means there are so many people to love you.’ Her mother wrote me a note later to say when they got home, her daughter told her about that.”

“He’s always there,” said Del. Mike Mullin, D-Newport News, a CNU alum. “I don’t think there was a week or two that ever went by when I didn’t walk by him and he’d call out and say hello.

“My father was ill, and he knew that and when he saw me, he’d always asked about my dad — I don’t think they ever met until my graduation ... but here’s this man running a multi-million-dollar enterprise and he knew about my dad and asked about him. That means a lot to me.”

At the start of 1996, Trible took charge of what had been struggling little commuter college that was losing students — its four-year graduation rate was just 11%. A state report recommended shutting it down.

He led faculty, staff and students to create a highly regarded public university providing a liberal arts education for which students typically had turned to costlier, highly selective private colleges.

“When I came, Christopher Newport was sort of going out of business,” Trible said. “I gathered all the faculty and staff and I shared a dream with them that we’re going to build a great university for America.

“Years later, one of the older professors, a kind of curmudgeon, was retiring and came by to see me, and he said, ‘Paul, you remember that day you had us all in and you talked about your vision — I walked out of there with some friends and I said you were crazy as hell.’ “.

His idea right from the start was to demand high quality professors connecting with students in small classes.

“You know, great dreams have power and consequence,” Trible said. “If I said we’re going to be 5% or 10% better, nobody would have cared.”

Since many of the old Christopher Newport’s students were finding what they needed elsewhere, he proposed going against current trends in higher education marketing, to instead woo traditional students interested in residential colleges with liberal arts and science programs.

He wanted, and got, an honor code, and encouraged a range of activities to enliven campus life. He launched a leadership program, and a large percentage of students pursue minors in leadership studies.

“He’s decisive,” Paul said. “When I went to him with the Honors idea, he got it right away. We had it up and running in year; I had more trouble convincing some faculty than the president — that’s not the way it usually goes in universities.”

The program built on the rigorous core curriculum requirement that Trible insisted on, which includes math, laboratory science, foreign language, economics, literature, English composition and even American history.

The idea is to speed students’ advance into upper-level coursework and the aim is for everyone, including professors, to learn.

Honors program students pursue independent research, some of which ends up published scholarly journals, and are encouraged to engage with the community.

“Paul dreamed of creating a public university that could incorporate the values and intimacy of his alma mater Hampden Sydney, a university that could rival the splendor and inspiration of the University of Virginia and a university that could match the reputation and academic excellence of William & Mary,” said Robert R. Hatten, CNU’s Rector.

During Trible’s tenure, enrollment grew from 2,920 to more than 4,700. The four-year graduation rate now stands at 69%.

Full-time faculty increased from 166 to 282; the library’s holdings quadrupled to 1.2 million volumes.

The university’s endowment — the pool of donated funds that allow it to venture into new areas for research and new ways of teaching and learning — rose from $330,000 to $60 million.

“I had this idea for a performing arts center; Christopher Newport had wonderful music and theatre arts programs but we were the only school in Virginia with these and no performance space. And this community didn’t have one either,” Trible said.

But he was convinced that arts — as well as a campus architecture echoing Virginia’s Georgian traditions — would help CNU with “our business: to instruct and inspire.” He found an ally in then-Del. Alan Diamonstein. In the 1996 General Assembly session, Diamonstein won a $5 million appropriation for the performing arts center and a 21% boost in CNU’s operating funds.

“When I came here, I guess they thought, what the heck, he can’t make things worse,” Trible said. “After that, I think they thought, well maybe he’s OK.”

“A dream is one thing, a dream with $5 million is something else.”

With that, he launched the community fundraising effort that eventually resulted in the construction of the Ferguson Center.

Trible is one of two longstanding and influential Peninsula college presidents to retire at the end of the school year — Hampton University’s William Harvey also plans to retire after 43 years at the school.

Trible took a sabbatical in February 2021 to care for wife Rosemary, who was ill but is doing much better these days.

Rosemary Trible, a fixture on the campus, is known for giving each graduate a hug as they walk across the stage during commencement. She is an author, has shared her story as a rape victim and counseled hundreds of women.

“Paul and Rosemary Trible made and kept promises to thousands of students and families across Virginia,” said Peter Blake, director of the State Council for Higher Education for Virginia. “Through the arts, intellectual vitality and community leadership, they improved the quality of life for residents in Hampton Roads and beyond,” he added.

Trible took office as Christopher Newport’s fifth president on Jan. 1, 1996, a career in law and politics that included service as a commonwealth’s attorney of Essex County from 1974-76, three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, and one term in the U.S. Senate.

He won his first election to Congress at 29, the first Republican to represent a district that stretched from his home turf in the rural stretches of the Middle Peninsula to what was then solidly Democratic Newport News.

His community connections and political experience were key to his successes, friends and colleagues say.

“He understands how things work,” said Sen. Mark Warner.

When Warner was governor, CNU could still seem dwarfed around Capitol Square by heavy hitters from the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and William & Mary, he said. Trible was a key ally in convincing the General Assembly to approve a higher education bond sale and taxes to tackle state schools’ financial squeeze.

“A lot of academics are nervous about getting into politics, but Paul took a lead and gave them the backbone to be a help,” Warner said.

Trible’s political savvy and connections on both sides of the aisle has paid off for CNU, too — as when it comes to the school’s share of state bond financings for higher education.

Trible shepherded more than $1 billion in construction projects, mostly recently including the $60 million-dollar 83,000-square-foot Mary M. Torggler Fine Arts Center with its façade of cascading glass domes facing Warwick Boulevard.

He’s a firm Republican and is a close friend of Warner’s and many other Virginia Democrats.

“There’s no R or D when it comes to dealing with Paul Trible,” said Mullin. “His vision of what CNU is excited me — I had to move here to be a part of it.”

That vision, Mullin said, is to nurture “a really thoughtful place, that gives people an opportunity to think about the world, think critically, and create citizen scholars ... students who are part of the community, who really volunteer because that’s the kind of person Paul is.”

Dave Ress, 757-247-4535, dress@dailypress.com