About
Longwood University is a public university in Farmville, Virginia, United States. Founded on March 5, 1839, it is the third-oldest public university in Virginia and one of the hundred oldest institutions of higher education in the United States. Originally established as the Farmville Female Seminary, a female seminary, normal school, and college, later becoming widely known as Longwood or Longwood College. The university became coeducational in 1976 and officially attained university status on July 1, 2002.
Longwood University comprises three undergraduate academic colleges: the Cook-Cole College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business and Economics, and the College of Education and Human Services. Academically advanced students may also choose the Cormier Honors College while graduate students and working professionals are admitted into the College of Graduate and Professional Studies.
In early April 1865, armies under the command of Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant marched past the north end of campus on Lee's retreat to Appomattox just days before the end of the American Civil War. At the south end of campus lies the former Robert Russa Moton High School, site of the 1951 student strike that became one of the five court cases culminating in the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision.