Bridgewater College is a private liberal-arts college in Bridgewater, Virginia. Established in 1880, Bridgewater College admitted both men and women from the time of its founding and was the first four-year liberal arts college in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

to do so. Approximately 1,800 students are enrolled.

History

Bridgewater College was established in 1880 as Spring Creek Normal and Collegiate Institute by Daniel Christian Flory. Nine years later, the school was named Bridgewater College and chartered by the

Commonwealth of Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

to grant

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

degrees. Bridgewater conferred its first

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

degree on June 1, 1891. In 1895, the Chairman of the Faculty, Walter B. Yount, a graduate of what would become Juniata College and the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

was named the college's first President. After his retirement in 1910, John S. Flory (an early Bridgewater graduate who also received degrees from other institution and had served on the faculty and as vice-president) succeeded him as the college's president. Bridgewater College became the first senior co-educational liberal arts college in Virginia and one of the few accredited colleges of its type in the South. The oldest portion of the Bridgewater College campus, consisting of five fine brick collegiate buildings constructed before 1911, is included in the Bridgewater Historic District. an
''Accompanying photo''
/ref> It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1984.

2022 shooting

On February 1, 2022, 55-year-old campus police officer John Painter and 48-year-old campus safety officer J.J. Jefferson were shot and killed on campus after being called to investigate a suspicious person on campus. The shooter, a 27-year-old former student named Alexander Wyatt Campbell, was later apprehended after a manhunt and suffered a gunshot injury at some point during the incident.

Campus

Bridgewater College - panoramio - Idawriter

Bridgewater College is located in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The Bridgewater campus comprises and the educational activities are focused on the primary campus of . Students can choose to be involved in approximately 60 social, cultural, religious, and academic clubs and organizations on campus. In addition, the student-run Eagle Productions hosts a wide variety of free weekend activities available to students. Events range from comedians and musicians to Homecoming festivities and the Springfest Carnival. The nearby cities of Harrisonburg, Staunton, and

Charlottesville Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...

provide numerous arts and cultural opportunities for students, while the

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, metropolitan area is only a two-hour drive away. Civil War battlefields, national parks, agriculture, and restaurants featuring local food are all part of the culture of the Shenandoah Valley, bounded by the

Allegheny Mountains The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...

to the west and the Blue Ridge chain to the east, both of which are visible from campus.

Academics

Bridgewater offers more than 60 majors and minors, awarding the

and

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degrees. Bridgewater students have the opportunity to study abroad through the BCA Study Abroad program and May Term Travel Courses. Bridgewater also offers the Flory Honors Program. Flory Fellows gain access to many opportunities and benefits, including honors sections of general education courses limited to 15 students each, housing within the honors community, and more. Bridgewater began offering its first masters program in Athletic Training for the 2017–2018 school year, and now offers a Master of Arts in Digital Media Strategy for the 2018–2019 school year. Bridgewater College hopes to include more graduate programs in the future. Bridgewater was ranked #229 in National Liberal arts colleges based on U.S. News Report

Student life

Traditions

Annual events at Bridgewater College celebrate tradition, community, alumni, and culture. Founder's Day observance at Bridgewater commemorates the April 3, 1854, birth of Daniel Christian Flory, who began Bridgewater College in 1880, at the age of 26. Homecoming weekend in October welcomes alumni back to the college with class reunions, outdoor festivities, a home football game and the annual Athletic Hall of Fame banquet. Senior Week is the week before graduation, in which seniors celebrate with several organized events. Oracles at the Oak was a tradition originally carried out by the senior classes during the early to mid 1900s underneath an oak tree on campus. Students met to pledge their dedication to the school and to each other. After the lightning-damaged oak tree was cut down, the tradition subsided. However, the class of 2008 rekindled this tradition with the help of the Bridgewater College Alumni Association. The end of senior week is marked with the Bridgewater Ball, a formal dinner and dance usually held in nearby Harrisonburg.

Athletics

Bridgewater College is a

Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Thir ...

member of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

(NCAA) and follows guidelines and policies set forth by this governing body. The teams are members of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC), which has 14 member institutions. Bridgewater College sponsors 22 NCAA intercollegiate sports, which include

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

, cross country, football,

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...

, soccer,

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

indoor track Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping event ...

, and outdoor track for men, and

, cross country,

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

, soccer,

, outdoor track,

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

and

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

for women. Additionally, the athletic program supports

cheerleading Cheerleading is an activity in which the participants (called cheerleaders) cheer for their team as a form of encouragement. It can range from chanting slogans to intense physical activity. It can be performed to motivate sports teams, to ente ...

, a dance team and

pep band A pep band is an ensemble of instrumentalists who play at events, usually athletic, with the purpose of entertaining and creating enthusiasm in a crowd. Often members of a pep band are a subset of people from a larger ensemble such as a marchi ...

, which perform at home football and basketball games. Bridgewater College also has an interactiv
Athletic Hall of Fame
located in Nininger Hall to honor those who, by outstanding achievement in athletics at the college and service thereafter, have made lasting contributions in the community, government, church and/or workplace. Club sports on campus also include Co-Ed

ultimate frisbee Ultimate, originally known as ultimate Frisbee, is a non-contact team sport played with a frisbee flung by hand. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by AJ Gator in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate resembles many traditional sports in its ath ...

and a men's league

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

team.

Notable people

Alumni

* G. Steven Agee, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia and now a Judge on the

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maryland ...

Pasco Middleton Bowman II Pasco Middleton Bowman II (born December 20, 1933) is an American attorney and jurist serving as a Senior status, senior United States federal judge, United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Early ...

, Senior federal judge on the

United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (in case citations, 8th Cir.) is a United States federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following United States district courts: * Eastern District of Arkansas * Western Dist ...

* David Branshaw, professional golfer. *

Ray Bussard Ray Bussard (August 12, 1928Famed swim coach Ray Bussard dies
posted on 2010- ...

, former National Championship (1978) winning Men's Swim Coach at

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...

from 1968 to 1989 * Moses H. W. Chan, Physicist elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2000 * Wolfgang Drechsler, German social scientist and government adviser * Phil Eyler, Canadian politician * Jacob A. Garber, U.S. Representative, 1929-1931 *

Nathan H. Miller Nathan Huff Miller (born July 4, 1943) is an American lawyer and political figure from the Commonwealth of Virginia. A Republican, he served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly. He is currently the managing partner of Harrisonbur ...

, politician * Richard D. Obenshain, politician

Faculty

* Carl Bowman, sociologist

References

External links

Official website

Official athletics website
{{authority control Private universities and colleges in Virginia Universities and colleges affiliated with the Church of the Brethren Educational institutions established in 1880 Universities and colleges accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Education in Rockingham County, Virginia Buildings and structures in Rockingham County, Virginia 1880 establishments in Virginia