In 1968, a small Baptist college on a West Virginia hilltop did something no other school in the country had done: it launched a four-year bachelor's degree program for physician assistants. The idea of training a new kind of medical professional - someone who could practice medicine under physician supervision, filling gaps in primary care - was still novel. Alderson-Broaddus College took the model and put it on a four-year academic foundation, an innovation that would shape the entire PA profession nationwide. Fifty-five years later, on August 31, 2023, the same school filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and shut its doors. The PA program had survived a century and a half of mergers, moves, and financial scares. The institution that built it did not.
Alderson Broaddus traced its roots to two separate institutions. The older was Broaddus Institute, founded in Winchester, Virginia in 1871 by Baptist minister Edward Jefferson Willis and named for Reverend William Francis Ferguson Broaddus, a prominent Civil War-era Baptist clergyman. Financial pressure pushed Broaddus across the Allegheny Mountains to Clarksburg, West Virginia in 1876, and on to the small town of Philippi in 1909. The other school, Alderson Academy, was founded in 1901 by Emma C. Alderson, a Baptist laywoman who started it as a home school with classics, sciences, and normal studies. The West Virginia Baptist Association took control in 1910. Hard times in the late 1920s pushed both schools toward merger, and Alderson-Broaddus College opened on the Philippi campus in 1932.
The new institution built a reputation through firsts. In 1945, Alderson-Broaddus established the first four-year nursing degree program in West Virginia and the first radiologic technology program in the state. In 1964, a portion of the physical assets of Storer College, a historically Black Baptist college founded in 1865 in Harpers Ferry, were transferred to Alderson-Broaddus and used to fund the Storer Scholarship, given annually to an African-American student. The pioneering physician assistant program followed in 1968. By 1991, the college had launched its first graduate-level program: the Physician Assistant Master's. The 170-acre campus sat on a rolling hilltop overlooking the Tygart Valley River and the town of Philippi, with views of the county courthouse and the historic Philippi Covered Bridge - the site of one of the Civil War's first land engagements.
Athletics had its own history. The school's teams were called the Battlers, a reference to the 1861 Battle of Philippi Races. Men's soccer, coached by Bob Gray from 1978 to 1991, was the marquee program for decades. From 2011, President Richard Creehan pushed an ambitious expansion: enrollment grew by more than 600 students, new academic programs were added, and football came back as a full varsity sport in 2013. The same year, the board of governors renamed the institution Alderson Broaddus University. The school competed in the Mountain East Conference after the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference disbanded in 2013, and held memberships in NCAA Division II. At closure, the university fielded twenty varsity sports.
The expansion strained the budget. In 2017, the Higher Learning Commission placed Alderson Broaddus on probation due to financial difficulties. The university came off probation in 2019 after performance improved, but the underlying problems persisted. By the summer of 2023, the school could not pay its utility bills. On July 31, 2023, the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission revoked the university's authority to confer degrees and ordered it to stop admitting students. The commission found that 'the University's financial condition renders the institution unable to create a stable, effective, and safe learning environment for its students.' Governor Jim Justice tried to broker a rescue. The board of trustees voted to close instead. A month later, the Chapter 7 filing made the closure final.
The campus today is empty but largely intact. Whitescarver Hall, the oldest building on campus, dates to about 1911 - a Classical Revival structure designed by Holmboe and Lafferty, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. It is named for George M. Whitescarver of Pruntytown, West Virginia. The original Old Main from 1909 burned in 1977 and was replaced by Burbick Hall, the administration building. Seven residence halls, an arena, a turf football stadium, six academic buildings, and Wilcox Chapel still stand, waiting on whatever comes next. Notable alumni include Major League pitcher Randy Dobnak, U.S. Congressman Ed Schrock, and Jessica L. Wright, the first woman to serve as Adjutant General of the Pennsylvania National Guard.
Located at 39.16 degrees north, 80.05 degrees west, on a hilltop above Philippi, in Barbour County, West Virginia. Best viewed from 3,500 to 5,000 feet AGL. The campus occupies a 170-acre rolling hilltop overlooking the Tygart Valley River - look for the cluster of academic and residential buildings on high ground above the town. The Philippi Covered Bridge crosses the river just below. Nearest airports are Elkins-Randolph County (KEKN) to the southeast and North Central West Virginia (KCKB) at Clarksburg to the northwest.