College of William & Mary

The College of William & Mary (W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, among the original nine colonial colleges, and the ninth-oldest institution in the English-speaking world. William & Mary is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".

In 1779, then led by James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and other reformers, it underwent a significant transformation that saw the abolition of the Divinity School, the establishment of the first university-affiliated American law school, and a modernization of the curriculum. It was one of the first American institutions to offer graduate instruction. William & Mary was also the first to adopt an honor code (1736). In 1750, its students founded the first collegiate secret and honor society, the F.H.C. Society, popularly known as the Flat Hat Club, followed by the Phi Beta Kappa in 1776, the first Greek letter fraternity.

The university comprises six schools, and the main campus spans 1,200 acres and includes restored colonial structures, research centers, and modern academic facilities. Its historic Wren Building, attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, is the oldest academic building still standing in the United States. William & Mary is the only U.S. university with an official Coat of Arms granted by the College of Arms in London.

Alumni include three U.S. presidents (Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Tyler), numerous Founding Fathers, U.S. Supreme Court Chief justice John Marshall, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and early national leaders such as Edmund Randolph and Peyton Randolph. George Washington received his surveyor's license from the college in 1749 and later served as its first American chancellor.

History

Colonial era (1693–1776)

A school of higher education for both Native American young men and the sons of the colonists was one of the earliest goals of the leaders of the Colony of Virginia. The college's royal charter was granted on February 8, 1693 to "make, found and establish a certain Place of Universal Study, a perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and other good arts and sciences ... to be supported and maintained, in all time coming." Named in honor of the reigning monarchs King William III and Queen Mary II, the college is the second-oldest in the United States after Harvard University (1636). The original plans for the college date back to 1618 at Henrico but were thwarted by the Indian massacre of 1622, a change in government (in 1624, the Virginia Company's charter was revoked by King James I and the Virginia Colony was transferred to royal authority as a crown colony), events related to the English Civil War, and Bacon's Rebellion. In 1695, before the town of Williamsburg existed, construction began on the College Building, now known as the Sir Christopher Wren Building, in what was then called Middle Plantation. It is the oldest college building in America. The college is one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. The charter named James Blair as the college's first president (a lifetime appointment which he held until he died in 1743). William & Mary was founded as an Anglican institution; students were required to be members of the Church of England, and professors were required to declare adherence to the Thirty-Nine Articles.

In 1693, the college was given a seat in the House of Burgesses, and it was determined tobacco taxes and export duties on furs and animal skins would support the college. The college acquired a 330 acres (1.3 km2) parcel for the new school, 8 miles (13 km) from Jamestown. In 1694, the new school opened in temporary buildings. Williamsburg was granted a royal charter as a city in 1722 by the Crown and served as the capital of Colonial Virginia from 1699 to 1780. During this time, the college served as a law center, and lawmakers frequently used its buildings. It educated future U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Tyler. The college had close ties to America's founding fathers and figures pivotal to the development and expansion of the United States. George Washington, who received his surveyor's license through the college despite never attending, was the college's first American chancellor. William & Mary is famous for its firsts: the first U.S. institution with a royal charter, the first Greek-letter society (Phi Beta Kappa, founded in 1776), the first collegiate society in the country (F.H.C. Society, founded in 1750), the first student honor code and the first collegiate law school in America. In the 1760s, due to a conflict between the faculty (almost entirely Anglian ministers) and the Board of Visitors (mainly leading local families whose students attended), discipline was weak. The college had a reputation as a "party school"; groups of students would also occasionally rampage through the city, damaging property and getting into fights with artisans.

Campus

The college sits on a 1,200-acre (490 ha) campus in Williamsburg, Virginia, bordering the historic colonial town. The vast majority of William & Mary's 1,200 acres (4.9 km2) consists of woodlands and Lake Matoaka, an artificial lake created by colonists in the early 18th century. The Sir Christopher Wren Building is the oldest college building in the United States and was designated as a National Historic Landmark. The building, colloquially referred to as the "Wren Building", was named upon its renovation in 1931 to honor the English architect Sir Christopher Wren. Today's Wren Building is based on the design of its 1716 replacement. The college's alum association has suggested Wren's connection to the 1931 building is a viable subject of investigation.

Two other buildings around the Wren Building compose an area known as "Ancient" or "Historic Campus": the Brafferton (built within 1723 and originally housing the Indian School, now the President and Provost's offices) and the President's House, (built within 1732). In addition to the Ancient Campus, which dates to the 18th century, the college also consists of "Old Campus" and "New Campus". "Old Campus", adjacent to Ancient Campus, surrounds the Sunken Garden.

Adjoining "Old Campus" to the north and west is "New Campus", which was constructed primarily between 1950 and 1980, and it consists of academic buildings and dormitories that, while of the same brick construction as "Old Campus", fit into the vernacular of modern architecture. Beginning with the college's tercentenary in 1993, the college has embarked on a building and renovation program favoring traditional architectural style of "Old Campus", while incorporating energy-efficient technologies including LEED certification. Additionally, as the buildings of "New Campus" are renovated after decades of use, several have been remodeled to incorporate more traditional architectural elements to unify the appearance of the entire college campus. "New Campus" is dominated by William and Mary Hall, Earl Gregg Swem Library, and formerly Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall. It also includes the offices and classrooms of the Mathematics, Physics, Psychology, Biology, and Chemistry Departments, the majority of freshman dormitories, the fraternity complex, the majority of the college's athletic fields, and the Muscarelle Museum of Art.

The recent wave of construction at William & Mary has resulted in a new building for the School of Education, not far from Kaplan Hall, formerly William and Mary Hall. The offices and classrooms of the Government, Economics, and Classical Language Departments share John E. Boswell Hall (formerly "Morton Hall") on "New Campus". These departments have been piecemeal separated and relocated to buildings recently renovated within the "Old Campus", such as Chancellors' Hall. The newest addition to "New Campus" is Alan B. Miller Hall, the headquarters of the college's Mason School of Business.

Organization and administration

The Chancellor of the College of William & Mary is largely ceremonial. Until 1776, the position was held by an English subject, usually the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London, who served as the college's advocate to the Crown, while a colonial President oversaw the day-to-day activities of the Williamsburg campus. Following the Revolutionary War, General George Washington was appointed as the first American chancellor; later, United States President John Tyler held the post. The college has recently had several distinguished chancellors: former Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger (1986–1993), former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1993–2000), former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (2000–2005), and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (2005–2012). Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, himself an alumnus of the college, succeeded O'Connor in February 2012.

The Board of Visitors is a corporation established by the General Assembly of Virginia to govern and supervise the operation of the College of William & Mary and of Richard Bland College. The corporation is composed of 17 members appointed by the Governor of Virginia, based upon the recommendations made by the Society of the Alumni, to a maximum of two successive four-year terms. The Board elects a Rector, Vice-Rector, and Secretary, and the Board meets four times annually. The Board appoints a president, related administrative officers, and an honorary chancellor, approving degrees, admission policies, departments, and schools and executing the fiduciary duties of supervising the college's property and finances. The Board of Visitors delegates to a president the operating responsibility and accountability for the college's administrative, fiscal, and academic performance, as well as representing the college on public occasions such as conferral of degrees. W. Taylor Reveley III, 27th President of the college, served from 2008 to 2018. In February 2018, The Board of Visitors unanimously elected Katherine A. Rowe as Reveley's successor. Rowe is the first female president to serve the college since its founding.

Faculty members are organized into separate faculties of the Faculty of Arts and Science as well as those for the respective schools of Business, Education, Law, and Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Each faculty is presided over by a dean, who reports to the provost, and governs itself through separate by-laws approved by the Board of Visitors. The faculty is also represented by a faculty assembly advising the president and provost. The Royal Hospital School, an independent boarding school in the United Kingdom, is a sister institution.

Academics

As a medium-sized, highly residential, public research university, the focal point of the institution is its four-year, full-time undergraduate program which constitutes most of the institution's enrollment. The college has a strong undergraduate arts and sciences focus, with many graduate programs in diverse fields ranging from American colonial history to marine science. The university offers multiple academic programs through its center in Washington, D.C, an undergraduate joint degree program in engineering with Columbia University, as well as a liberal arts joint degree program with the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

The graduate programs are dominant in STEM fields and the university has a high level of research activity. For the 2016–17 academic year, 1,591 undergraduate, 652 masters, and 293 doctoral degrees were conferred. William & Mary is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

William & Mary contains several schools, academic departments, and interdisciplinary research institutes, including:

• College of Arts and Sciences
• Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences at VIMS
• Raymond A. Mason School of Business
• William & Mary Law School
• William & Mary School of Computing, Data Sciences & Physics
• William & Mary School of Education

William & Mary offers exchange programs with 15 foreign schools, drawing more than 12% of its undergraduates into these programs. It also receives U.S. State Department grants to expand its foreign exchange programs further.

Admissions and tuition

William & Mary enrolled 7,063 undergraduate and 2,755 postgraduate students in Fall 2024. In 2018, women made up 57.6% of the undergraduate and 50.7% of the graduate student bodies.

Admission to W&M is considered "most selective" according to U.S. News & World Report. For the undergraduate class entering fall 2024, William & Mary received 17,789 applications and accepted 6,063, or 34.0%. Of accepted applications, 1,614 enrolled, a yield rate of 26.6%. Of all matriculating students, the average high school GPA is 4.4. The interquartile range for total SAT scores was 1400–1530, while the range for ACT scores was 32–34.

Undergraduate tuition for 2024–2025 was $18,709 for Virginia residents and $43,442 for out-of-state students. W&M granted over $20.9 million in need-based scholarships in 2014–2015 to 1,734 undergraduates (27.5% of the undergraduate student body); 37% of the student body received loans, and average student indebtedness was $26,017. Research of William & Mary's student body published in 2016 and 2017 showed students hailed overwhelmingly from wealthy family backgrounds, even as compared to other elite public institutions. The college is need-blind for domestic applicants.

Student life

The college hosts several prominent student-run culture and identity-based organizations. These include the Black Student Organization, Catholic Campus Ministry, Hillel (the college's official Jewish student group), Asian American Student Initiative, Latin American Student Union, Lambda Alliance and Rainbow Coalition, and the Middle Eastern Students Association. The college's International Relations Club (IRC) ranked eleventh of twenty-five participants in the 2020–2021 North American College Model U.N.

The official student newspaper is The Flat Hat; an arts and fashion magazine is called Rocket Magazine, and the satirical newspaper is The Botetourt Squat. The school's television station is WMTV. Everyday Gourmet, the former flagship production of the station, was featured in USA Today in 2009. WCWM is the college's student-run public radio station. William & Mary's radio station, WCWM, has been on the air since 1959.

Traditions

William & Mary has several traditions, including the Yule Log Ceremony, at which the president dresses as Santa Claus and reads a rendition of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", the Vice-President of Student Affairs reads "Twas the Night Before Finals", and The Gentlemen of the College sing the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas". This popular tradition started with German immigrant Charles Minnigerode, a humanities professor at the college in 1842 who taught Latin and Greek.

W&M also takes pride in its connections to its colonial past during Charter Day festivities. Charter Day is technically February 8, based on the date (from the Julian Calendar) that James Blair, first president of the college, received the charter from the Court of William III and Mary II at Kensington Palace in 1693. Past Charter Day speakers have included former US President John Tyler, Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher, and Robert Gates.

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