Shenandoah University was founded in 1875, in Dayton, Virginia, as Shenandoah Seminary by Dr. Abraham Paul Funkhouser and Professor Jay Newton Fries. The name of the institution and the valley where it was situated derived from the Indian legend of Zynodoa, a brave whose life of strength and courage and his appreciation of beauty resulted in having a river and a valley named for him. In 1884, the then Shenandoah Institute became affiliated with the United Brethren of Christ Church, the beginning of the University's religious affiliations. The United Brethren of Christ Church became the Evangelical United Brethren Church and finally the United Methodist Church -- Shenandoah University's present-day affiliation -- in the 1968 merger of the EUB Church and the National Methodist Church.

In 1924, the Virginia State Board of Education accredited Shenandoah as a junior college, and in 1925, the institution's name was changed to Shenandoah College. Shenandoah remained a junior college through 1946. In 1937, Shenandoah Conservatory of Music became a separate corporation and the institution operated as two entities under one administration through the 1940s. The college was still a junior college but the Conservatory granted a four-year degree. In the mid-1940s Shenandoah College became a full member in the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and the Conservatory was granted full membership in the National Association of Schools of Music in 1944.

Shortly thereafter, Shenandoah College and Conservatory of Music began to fall on hard times. Student enrollment fell and interest from regional students in a private junior college and a Conservatory of Music seemed to decline. President Troy Brady contacted then U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr. for assistance which resulted in a movement that relocated Shenandoah to Winchester, Virginia in 1960.

The institution thrived in its new location. The nursing and respiratory therapy programs were the first specialty programs developed in the Allied Health Department -- which later became the School of Health Professions -- in 1960. By the fall of 1963, the school had evolved into distinct divisions: the Conservatory; the Allied Health Department; the Business Administration Department; and the Liberal Arts and related curriculum in the Junior College Department. In 1974, the two existing corporations were merged officially creating Shenandoah College and Conservatory of Music. The Junior College became a full-fledged four-year institution and was fully accredited. The enrollment had grown to 722 men and women in 1975, and the Annual Fund raised $630,296.

Page 2, SU History >>>>