Visitor Guide

About Longwood

Situated in the heart of Virginia, and the heart of the two-college community of Farmville, Longwood University is one of America’s hundred-oldest colleges and universities. A public liberal arts university of about 5,000 students, Longwood has a distinctive mission: to shape citizen leaders.

Civil War To Civil Rights

Longwood’s historic 60-acre central campus has witnessed some of the most critical events in American history. The final hours of the Civil War played out along High Street on the north end of campus, with the Union army of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant pursuing Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army through town shortly before the surrender at Appomattox, a few miles west.

In 1951, the south end of campus witnessed the student-led birth of the modern civil rights movement, with the student strike at the then all-black Moton School. The strikers’ campaign for educational opportunity became an essential part of the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation case, accounting for 75 percent of plaintiffs. Today, Moton is an award-winning museum that recently affiliated with Longwood, and plays an instrumental role in the life of the university.

Our Mission

Longwood is known for its citizen leadership mission, camaraderie and small classes. It also has the highest percentage of courses taught by full-time faculty of any public university in Virginia. Its students are famous for their enthusiastic extracurricular involvement, and hundreds of Longwood students have volunteered to help with the debate.

Fast Facts

• Enrollment: 5,000
• Athletics: Division I, Big South Conference
• President: W. Taylor Reveley IV
• Clubs and organizations: More than 125
• Rankings: No. 9 among regional universities in the South, U.S. News & World Report 2015 Rankings