NOVA Annandale Campus to Hold Heritage Celebration

On Friday, September 22 at 10:30 a.m., the Annandale Campus of the Northern Virginia Community College will hold a Heritage Celebration on the Historic Site on campus where the original farmhouse once stood of the Pruitt family that sold the property to the Commonwealth of Virginia for the campus. NOVA alumni and the public are invited to attend.

At the Heritage Celebration, President Scott Ralls will dedicate interpretive signage at the Historic Site, followed by a reception and a special presentation by the Annandale Campus Lyceum Committee in the Mark R. Warner Student Services Building.

The Dedication Ceremony will feature two special guests, the Honorable Sharon Bulova, Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and an alumna of NOVA, and Dr. Dana Hamel, the first Chancellor of the Virginia Community College system who spoke at both the groundbreaking and dedication ceremonies for the campus, who is 94 years old.

The Lyceum Legacy Lecture will feature Dr. David Conroy, a full-time mathematics professor who has taught at NOVA since 1968 and Floyd Schwartz, an adjunct faculty member, who has taught continuously at NOVA since 1967. Dr. Hamel will also participate.

The original 76.88 acre parcel was purchased for what was then called the Central Campus in 1966 for the then whopping sum of $1,000,000. A groundbreaking ceremony for the new campus was held in front of the farmhouse at 12:00 noon on October 31, 1966.

The campus opened its doors for classes in the first building – the CS Building – for the first time on October 2, 1967. A dedication ceremony for the new Central Campus was held at 1:00  p.m. on October 30, 1967, with Governor Mills Godwin and Chancellor Dana Hamel speaking

NOVA began as the Northern Virginia Technical College, one of nine technical colleges created in Virginia under the authority of legislation approved by the General Assembly in 1964, in a converted warehouse in Bailey’s Crossroads that opened its doors for classes on September 27, 1967, with 761 students.

On April 6, 1966, Governor Godwin signed legislation creating the Virginia Community College system that merged the technical colleges into the system, and the college became Northern Virginia Community College.

From those humble beginnings, NOVA has become the largest institution of higher education in Virginia with over 70,000 students taking courses annually in one of its six campuses and three centers or online, making NOVA the eleventh largest college in the United States, annually awarding more associate degrees than any other higher education institution in the nation.

 

 

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