PHILIPPI, W.Va. (WBOY) — With Monday’s announcement that Alderson Broaddus would no longer be permitted to award degrees, students at the school have had their lives turned upside down.
Liz Polling, a first-year senior, who is majoring in Elementary Education and is a member of the Alderson Broaddus cheerleading team is shocked that the University she calls home will be closing its doors.
“One day I felt like everything was going to be okay and then the next day, some days I was like ‘oh, there’s no hope.’ So, it was like a guessing game back and forth,” said Polling.
The Philippi local who had always planned to attend Alderson Broaddus decided to attend the university after the cheerleading coach reached out to her asking her to join the team. Being 24 years old, Polling was hesitant to cheer at the university, but after attending the school, she said that it’s been the best years of her life.
“Oh my God, AB is my home, like I literally love it. It’s a big part of who I am. It’s like a family, and like the family is literally being teared apart and no one can control any of it,” Polling said. “For this area to have something like this is really special.”
Polling was packing up her room at home to move to her new dorm room for the fall semester when she heard the news.
Multiple schools have reached out to Polling about transferring, however, she said that she isn’t sure what she wants to do in the fall.
“I’m going to try either cheer or acro, I haven’t decided yet. Like I would like to cheer, but I also want to compete and there’s not many teams around that do NCAA or NCA Nationals unless they’re far away and I don’t know if I want to go far away,” Polling said.
