Northern Virginia Community College

• 1. Introduction

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  Northern Virginia Community College opened its doors in the fall of 1965 with 761 students in a single building in Bailey's Crossroads. That modest start under president Robert L. McKee looks almost unrecognizable beside the institution today. NOVA, as locals call it, now serves nearly 75,000 students across six campuses and draws people from more than 180 countries. How does a college born in one building become the third-largest multi-campus community college in the United States? And what does it mean to be a college that sits in the shadow of the nation's capital, serving a region defined by its relentless growth? Those are the questions this documentary sets out to answer.

• 2. A College Takes Root

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  On the 8th of February 1965, what would become NOVA was formally established under the name Northern Virginia Technical College. That first autumn, 761 students arrived at a single building in Bailey's Crossroads, a stretch of northern Fairfax County that was itself still taking shape. Within a year, the college's leadership recognized the space problem. In 1966, they purchased 78 acres in Annandale to build the first of what would eventually become six permanent campus sites. Distance learning entered the picture by 1975, decades before online education became an industry standard. The college's path from a single rented building to a sprawling multi-campus system unfolded over a generation of incremental construction, purchase, and expansion.

• 3. Six Campuses, One System

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  The Manassas Campus sits on 100 acres beside the Manassas National Battlefield, a detail that gives the campus an unusual neighbor. Across the system, the campuses were built at very different moments in the college's life. The Alexandria Campus grew from one building on a 22.5-acre site in 1971 to three buildings on 51.4 acres by 1980. The Woodbridge Campus, meanwhile, began offering classes in temporary community facilities starting in 1972, before permanent construction on its 109-acre site got underway in 1974. The Loudoun Campus started on 91.4 acres in 1972 and reached completion with four permanent buildings by 1974. Each campus primarily serves the residents of its surrounding communities, from the City of Alexandria and Arlington County in the east to western Prince William County and Loudoun County in the west. The Medical Education Campus, which opened in Springfield in the fall of 2003, is a departure from the usual model. It is a collaborative effort among NOVA, George Mason University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and regional public school systems, offering health-related programs complete with dental clinics and clinical practice sites.

• 4. Arts, Culture, and Community

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  The Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center at the Alexandria Campus was completed in 2001 and seats 981 people in its Mary Collier Baker Theater. At Annandale, the Richard J. Ernst Community Cultural Center, finished in 1990, provides a 525-seat auditorium that the campus shares with the surrounding community. The Mary Louise Jackson Amphitheater at the Manassas Campus opened in 1999. These venues are not incidental additions. They signal a deliberate role NOVA has carved out as a cultural anchor in a region that is suburban rather than urban, spread across jurisdictions rather than concentrated in a single city. The Annandale Campus's Student Services Building, opened in 2011, was later renamed the Mark Warner Student Services Building after Virginia Senator Mark Warner in 2016, tying the college's physical spaces directly to the political life of the state it serves.

• 5. Academics and Access

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  NOVA holds accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and offers more than 160 associate-level degrees and certificate programs. Its library system extends across all six campuses and the Arlington Center, holding more than 250,000 volumes and subscriptions to more than 200 databases. Many of those database subscriptions are purchased through the Virtual Library of Virginia, giving NOVA students access to resources comparable to those at other Virginia colleges and universities. A feeder program guarantees admission to partnered intrastate four-year schools, making NOVA a deliberate on-ramp rather than a terminal destination. High school students can enroll through dual-enrollment offerings, and distance learners have access through NOVA Online and the Extended Learning Institute. Among the faculty, Jill Biden taught English at NOVA while she was First Lady of the United States.

• 6. Athletics and Identity

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  NOVA began intercollegiate athletics in 2001 as a member of the National Junior College Athletic Association. The college fields teams in women's volleyball, men's soccer, women's cross country, men's basketball, women's basketball, football, men's lacrosse, and softball at the varsity level. Women's Cross Country won NJCAA Region 20 championships in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. Women's Volleyball claimed Region 20 titles in 2014 and 2018. NOVA introduced its first mascot of the modern athletics era, Ace the Nighthawk, in 2017. The college added a varsity esports team in the fall of 2018 as a member of the National Association of Collegiate Esports. The Nighthawks did not field teams during the COVID-19 pandemic; they returned for the 2022-23 school year. Following the 2023-24 basketball season, President Anne Kress announced that NOVA would no longer compete in NJCAA sports, leaving esports as the college's sole intercollegiate athletic program.

• 7. Notable Voices

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  Ashley Wagner, the figure skater, attended NOVA, as did Christina Hendricks, the actress. Doug Mills built a career as a photojournalist after studying there. Adam Parkhomenko went on to become a political strategist and former National Field Director for the Democratic National Committee. Gerry Bertier, the Paralympian, is among the alumni whose trajectories moved well beyond Northern Virginia. Carol Banawa, the singer, rounds out a list that spans entertainment, journalism, politics, and sport. What links these individuals is not a common field but a common starting point: a public community college in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., that exists, as its admissions policy reflects, to move students forward rather than to hold them in place.