Qualla: Ferrum College

Ferrum College: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit IxieVerns, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1909, a Methodist missionary named Mrs. Lee Britt had already gathered $1,200 - a real sum in 1909 dollars - toward starting a school somewhere in southern Virginia for the children of rural mountain families who could not get any other kind of education. She just needed a place to put it. In 1911 the Norfolk and Western Railway chose a small village called Ferrum, between Roanoke and Winston-Salem, as the location for a new train depot. That decision settled the matter. A local farmer named George Goode sold the trustees eighty acres; the villagers donated another fifty. In the fall of 1914 the first section of John Wesley Hall opened with one classroom, one term, and a presiding elder named Benjamin Beckham who had moved his entire family to the site to make the school go. In 1917 the school graduated its first student: Berta Thompson, born in 1897 in these mountains, who left Ferrum to become a public school teacher. Ferrum College today enrolls around 800 students, offers 54 majors plus four graduate programs, and still stands on the same ridge where Berta Thompson collected her diploma.

Read more: Ferrum College on Qualla

Image: IxieVerns | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ferrum College: A Mountain Mission School

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Smash the Iron Cage, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Virginia Conference Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church started Ferrum Training School in 1913 to serve children of underprivileged mountain families in the Blue Ridge foothills. The phrase mountain mission school was completely literal: the scho...

Read more: Ferrum College on Qualla

Image: Smash the Iron Cage | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ferrum College: From Training School to Junior College

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit KUGerhardt, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1926 the trustees had decided to push Ferrum upward. Local public schools were beginning to serve elementary education in the surrounding villages, including a new elementary school in Ferrum itself in 1928. Between 1926 and 1935 the institution moved gradually away from prima...

Read more: Ferrum College on Qualla

Image: KUGerhardt | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ferrum College: The Arthur Years

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. C. Ralph Arthur became president in 1954, and the school's growth under his leadership was remarkable. Arthur pressed the Methodist Church for stronger financial support, replaced under-credentialed faculty with professionally trained college instructors, and convinced the truste...

Read more: Ferrum College on Qualla

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Ferrum College: Integration and the United Methodist Church

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SheepNotGoats (Talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1963 the Methodist Church Annual Conference recommended that its Virginia schools enroll students without regard to race. In 1967 Ferrum welcomed its first four African American students: Alice Baker and Fred Dunnings of nearby Rocky Mount, Jerry Venable from Staunton, and All...

Read more: Ferrum College on Qualla

Image: SheepNotGoats (Talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ferrum College: The Panthers and the Campus

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jarek Tuszyński (user:Jarekt), CC BY 3.0. Ferrum's athletic teams compete as the Panthers in NCAA Division II in Conference Carolinas - 11 men's teams and 14 women's teams. The football team is informally called the Black Hats. The campus itself is listed on both the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia ...

Read more: Ferrum College on Qualla

Image: Jarek Tuszyński (user:Jarekt) | CC BY 3.0