Lynchburg College - History

History

Lynchburg College was founded in 1903 by Dr. Josephus Hopwood as a selective, independent, coeducational, and residential institution, which has a historical and current relationship to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Hopwood was president of Milligan College in Tennessee when a group of ministers and businessmen approached him about establishing a college in Lynchburg. A key to the founding was that Westover Hotel, a failed resort, was available for sale. When Hopwood agreed to serve, they purchased the resort for $13,500, resulting in Lynchburg's current campus.

The College has maintained its original commitment to a liberal arts education. Beginning with 11 faculty and 55 students, the College has grown to 159 full-time faculty and 2,800 undergraduate and graduate students. The College offers 39 majors, 49 minors, two dual-degree programs, the Westover Honors Program, and offers graduate degrees in Masters of Arts, Masters of Business Administration, Masters of Education, and Masters of Science in Nursing as well as Doctorate programs in Physical Therapy and Educational Leadership. Lynchburg College has more than 20,000 alumni.

The Lynchburg College hymn was written by alumnus Paul E. Waters. Its melody was taken from JS Bach's "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden" Op. 135a, No. 21. The college fight song includes the phrase, "Hornet Born and Hornet Bred and when I die I'll be Hornet dead."

In the fall of 1994,a few months after Intel had introduced its Pentium microprocessor, Dr. Thomas R. Nicely, from Lynchburg College, was doing computations related to the distribution of prime numbers and discovered the Pentium FDIV bug. Dr. Nicely left Lynchburg College in 2000.

In 1997, Dr. Leonard Edelman was denied tenure by then-Dean of the College and he filed a lawsuit against the college for religious and gender discrimination. However, the filing was made beyond the allowable limit as provided for by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Edelmen filed a petition for re-consideration, and his lawsuit went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ruled against his extension request, and not on the merit of his tenure-denial claim.

Community outreach remains a tradition of the College, through initiatives of its eight Centers of Lynchburg College and the SERVE program, through which 98,000 volunteer hours are contributed annually by students, faculty, and staff.