Qualla: Old Dominion University

Old Dominion University: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cmett003, CC BY-SA 4.0. The first 206 students walked into the old Larchmont School building on September 12, 1930. The elementary school was already disused, the Depression was a year old, and what they were enrolling in was technically not a college but a two-year extension of the College of William & Mary in Norfolk. Tuition was meant to be affordable to people who could not afford William & Mary itself. One hundred and twenty-five men, eighty-one women, one director, and an idea that the Hampton Roads region needed its own university. Ninety-six years later that idea covers 250 acres between two rivers, enrolls about 24,000 students, and turns out more cybersecurity graduates and Navy ROTC officers than almost any school in the country.

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Image: Cmett003 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Old Dominion University: From Division to University

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Faithlessthewonderboy, CC BY-SA 4.0. Robert M. Hughes and J. A. C. Chandler had been arguing for a William & Mary outpost in Norfolk for years before it happened. Joseph Healy began the actual organizing work in 1924. A. H. Foreman pushed it through. On March 13, 1930, the Norfolk Division was approved; on September...

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Image: Faithlessthewonderboy | CC BY-SA 4.0

Old Dominion University: What the Region Needed

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit D'Ana Knowles, CC BY-SA 3.0. Hampton Roads has the largest naval base in the world and the East Coast's busiest container port. ODU built itself around those facts. The Strome College of Business runs MBA concentrations in maritime, transportation, and port logistics management - rare anywhere in the U.S. Th...

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Image: D'Ana Knowles | CC BY-SA 3.0

Old Dominion University: Cybersecurity First

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cmett003, CC BY-SA 4.0. On October 1, 2020, ODU launched the first dedicated School of Cybersecurity in the United States. The school offers undergraduate and graduate programs in cybersecurity and cyber operations, drawing faculty from across the university and from military affairs. Hampton Roads is h...

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Image: Cmett003 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Old Dominion University: The Campus and the Rivers

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cmett003, CC BY-SA 4.0. The main campus sits between the Elizabeth River on the west and the Lafayette River on the east, about five miles north of downtown Norfolk. The oldest part of campus is the Williamsburg Lawn, where Rollins Hall and Spong Hall still stand. Around Kaufman Mall cluster Constant Ha...

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Image: Cmett003 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Old Dominion University: Lady Monarchs and What They Won

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit PghPhxNfk, CC BY-SA 3.0. ODU's athletic programs are old, deep, and unexpectedly decorated. The Lady Monarchs basketball team won three national championships - 1979 and 1980 under the AIAW, 1985 under the NCAA - and reached the Women's NCAA championship game in 1997. The field hockey program has won nin...

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Image: PghPhxNfk | CC BY-SA 3.0