Virginia Western Community College

K-168

From 1956 to 1959 Virginia mandated Massive Resistance against the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown decision desegregating public education. In 1958, business leaders from around the state created the Virginia Industrialization Group to oppose Massive Resistance and reverse the damage it had done to education and the economy. Their efforts helped establish a system of technical colleges in 1964 that evolved into the Virginia Community College System in 1966. Roanoke Technical Institute, a branch of Virginia Tech, was combined with the University of Virginia’s Roanoke Center to form what became Virginia Western Community College. This was the first community college to open under the new system.

Department of Historic Resources, 2023

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Virginia Industrialization Group papers “The Founding of the Virginia Technical College System,” Encyclopedia Virginia, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/the-founding-of-the-virginia-technical-college-system/ Charles H. Ford and Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, “Reconstructing the Old Dominion: Lewis F. Powell, Stuart T. Saunders, and the Virginia Industrialization Group, 1958-65,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 121, no. 2 (2013). Richard A. Hodges, “Massive Resistance and the Origins of the Virginia Technical College System,” Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges, vol. 22, issue 2 (2019). Richmond Times-Dispatch, 26 Dec. 1965, 12 Feb. 1967, 21 Jan. 1968. Roanoke Times, 21, 22, 23 Sept. 1966. Virginia Western: Celebrating 50 Years of Educational Excellence, 1966-2016 (2016).