Marshall University Graduate College

Marshall University Graduate College is a branch of Marshall University located in South Charleston, West Virginia. Unlike Marshall University and West Virginia University (the other post-graduate degree institutions in West Virginia, Marshall University Graduate College has no undergraduate enrollment: the institution offers only advanced (post-baccalaureate) degrees.

Both Marshall University and West Virginia University, traditionally the only two state-supported schools that offered advanced degrees, offered extension graduate degree programs throughout the Charleston area prior to 1969. In that year these programs were divorced from those institutions and placed in the West Virginia College of Graduate Studies in Institute. The name was typically shortened to College of Graduate Studies and commonly referred to as COGS, but proved unacceptable, as the formal name was unacceptably long and the short name did not contain a geographic identifier. Ironically, when the State of West Virginia revamped its college and university governing structure in 1989, an even longer name was adopted for the graduate school: The University of West Virginia College of Graduate Studies. [http://www.marshall.edu/www/greenbook/ch_02.pdf]

The school had no campus and little full time faculty. It offered classes on the campuses of the various state colleges in the area and at other rented locations. The majority of the faculty consisted of professors at the state colleges. Its administrative center was at West Virginia State University in Institute.

In 1992 the school moved into a two-building campus on land donated by the Union Carbide Corporation in South Charleston, West Virginia. In 1997, the school was merged with the Graduate School of Marshall University, and was renamed to the present Marshall University Graduate College.