If you want a seat in Willett Hall for next month’s vice presidential debate, call Hillary Clinton.

Or Donald Trump.

Don’t call Taylor Reveley IV.

Longwood’s visionary young president, who beat many competitors to bring the nation’s only vice presidential debate of the 2016 election cycle to Farmville, is giving to his students the handful of seats the university is allotted inside the debate venue.

That’s as it should be in academia, where the interests of faculty, alumni and big donors too often trump those of the students whom colleges exist to serve.

Reveley, who engages in only slight hyperbole when he calls next month’s debate an “intergalactic event” for Longwood and Farmville, has made it his mission to carry the impact of the debate well beyond Oct. 4.

The short-term benefits already are obvious:

• Student applications for fall enrollment increased 11 percent over the prior year in the wake of the debate-hosting announcement last fall.

• The number of alumni making financial contributions to Longwood jumped 24 percent during the last academic year.

Long term, which is better measured in generations than in years or decades, Reveley wants the debate’s legacy to be a university focused on preparation of citizen leaders who make their marks on more than just the workplace.

To that end, a complete revamping of Longwood’s curriculum will have citizen leadership as its “North Star.” Already, the university added 30-plus special courses during the current academic year inspired by the debate and a determination by Reveley and his faculty to make the event more than a long weekend of media attention.

“That will be one of the powerful legacies,” Reveley told community leaders at a breakfast last week, “to catch this momentum and keep bursting forward into the future.”

STEVE STEWART is publisher of The Farmville Herald. His email address is steve.stewart@farmvilleherald.com.