Qualla: West Virginia University Institute of Technology

West Virginia University Institute of Technology: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit mksheldon, CC BY-SA 3.0. For more than a century, the brick buildings of West Virginia Tech rose above the Kanawha River at Montgomery, a small coalfields town that had grown around the railroad and the seam. Founders established the school in 1895 to train engineers for the mines and the steam plants and the riverside industries. Generations of students walked from class to the boat dock the school called the Tech Marina. Then in 2017, almost all at once, the campus left. WVU Tech packed up its 17 varsity sports, its 20 baccalaureate programs, and its administrative offices, and moved 30 miles south to Beckley. Montgomery kept the river and the railroad. The Old Main is still there, listed on the National Register since 1980, looking out over a college town that is no longer a college town.

Image: mksheldon | CC BY-SA 3.0

West Virginia University Institute of Technology: An Engineering School in the Coalfields

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stryker33, CC BY-SA 3.0. The school was founded in 1895 as part of West Virginia's effort to keep up with an industrializing economy. Montgomery sat at the confluence of the Kanawha and a railroad spur into the New River coalfields - a perfect place to teach mining engineering, electrical engineering, an...

Image: Stryker33 | CC BY-SA 3.0

West Virginia University Institute of Technology: The Revitalization Report

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stryker33, CC BY-SA 3.0. Enrollment had been falling for years. By 2011 the financial picture was bleak enough that the state legislature passed the WVU Tech Revitalization Project, which required an outside assessment of the school's prospects. A report delivered in October of that year recommended a sw...

Image: Stryker33 | CC BY-SA 3.0

West Virginia University Institute of Technology: What Stayed Behind

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stryker33, CC BY-SA 3.0. The relocation was phased over two years, with freshman courses moving first and the rest of the campus following by the fall of 2017. Then the Montgomery campus had to be dealt with. In April 2017, KVC Health Systems announced plans to lease-purchase the Fayette County side and ...

Image: Stryker33 | CC BY-SA 3.0

West Virginia University Institute of Technology: A College, Reborn in Beckley

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stryker33, CC BY-SA 3.0. The new campus sits on 170 acres in downtown Beckley with 28 buildings, repurposed from the former Mountain State University. Enrollment climbed from 1,106 students in the fall of 2017 to 1,622 by the spring of 2019 - clear evidence that the gamble on a larger city paid off, at l...

Image: Stryker33 | CC BY-SA 3.0