Bethany College

At Bethany, you’ll begin your college experience with wide-eyed excitement as you walk through the Oglebay Gates for the first time.
For some, this will be your first step towards an exciting career while for others, it promises to be an exploration of your passion for the liberal arts. Four years later, you’ll leave here prepared for the challenges of the 21st century. And the friendships you create here will go with you. Our courses of study will equip you with the tools you’ll need for a lifetime of learning. Our faculty will challenge you and change you in ways you haven’t even yet imagined. In all, your Bethany experience will live in your heart and give you the confidence to change the world.

Teaching and learning form the mission of Bethany College. Central to this is providing a liberal arts education for students, including the preparation of professionals, in an atmosphere of study, work, and service.

In its original charter, the mission of Bethany College was “the instruction of youth in the various branches of science and literature, the useful arts and the learned and foreign languages.”

Founder Alexander Campbell set the purpose of the College to prepare students to become useful and responsible members of society by liberating them from superstition and ignorance, the tyranny of others, and “vulgar prejudices.” Campbell envisioned that upon graduation, students would become their own teachers and pupils and continue their education throughout life.

Today, Bethany College continues to follow that same mission to educate effective, honorable, humane, and intelligent citizens who believe in and will promote the creation of a world of worth and value, integrating critical reason with the convictions of faith, personal accomplishment with ethical responsibility, and individual development with service to others.

Originally settled in 1769, Bethany had been inhabited by the Mingo and Shawnee nations. The Town of Bethany was given its name by the founder of Bethany College, Alexander Campbell, in 1827 so that a post office could be located here. Campbell then became Bethany’s first postmaster.

When West Virginia received statehood in 1863, Bethany College was its only degree-granting institution in higher education and is the oldest institution of higher learning in the Mountain State.