No Ordinary College, history of
UVa-Wise now available

The history of The University of Virginia’s College at Wise is unique in higher education. In No Ordinary College, Brian Steel Wills chronicles the uncommon life of the College, which was founded on a poor farm and has evolved to become one of the nation’s top public liberal arts colleges.

“It was Chancellor Emeritus Joseph C. Smiddy, the man who guided the College through most of its development, who observed that Clinch Valley was “never an ordinary College,” said Wills. “Indeed, it was with this in mind, that I sought to tell that extraordinary story. It is my hope that previous, current and future generations of students and alumni, faculty and staff, friends and supporters of The University of Virginia’s College at Wise will be able to use this book to better understand and appreciate that story.”

Published for the College’s 50th anniversary by the University of Virginia Press, No Ordinary College is essential reading for the College’s alumni, faculty and staff, and anyone interested in a heroic chapter in the history of public higher education in Virginia. Chapter titles hint at the interesting stories contained in No Ordinary College. “’From Poor Farm’ to ‘The College on the Hill;’ ““The Barnyard Disappears;” and “Peace in the Valley” are just a sampling of the stories inside.

“The narrative is well-known in Southwest Virginia, of the fateful meeting on a blustery evening in the Colonial Inn at Wise, of the three Wise men who traveled to Charlottesville to meet with University President Colgate Darden, of their race to Richmond to secure $10,000 for the first biennium from the Virginia General Assembly, and of a community of people who labored to renovate and outfit the building that became known as Crockett Hall after the first director of the College, Samuel R. Crockett.,” Wills said. “These efforts brought higher education to the coalfields region and changed the lives of so many students forever.”

A nationally recognized Civil War historian, Wills is the author of two books, The War Hits Home: The Civil War in Southeastern Virginia and A Battle From the Start: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest, along with numerous scholarly articles, essays, and book reviews. Additionally, he is a weekly columnist for the Kingsport Times-News. Wills’ latest work, an examination of the Civil War in film, will be published next year.

The Kenneth Asbury Professor of History, Wills is the 2000 recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Award presented by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. He also received the UVa-Wise Outstanding Teaching Award in 1998 and the Outstanding Research Award in 1995.

“In many ways completing the history of The University of Virginia’s College at Wise has truly been a labor of love,” Wills said. “I came to the institution, then known as Clinch Valley College in 1992, after being absolutely taken by the place and its people in the interview process that previous spring. I was fortunate to find a home in a department that still called upon the services of campus stalwarts like Edward L. “Buck” Henson and Stanley Willis. Much of my affection for the school came from the stories I heard from those individuals, and from Joe Smiddy, the most amazing man it has been my pleasure to come to know.”

No Ordinary College is available in the UVa-Wise Campus Bookstore located in the C. Bascom Slemp Student Center.

For more information, contact the Office of College Relations at 276-328-0130.