Northern Virginia Community College

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"NVCC" redirects here. For other uses, see NVCC (disambiguation).

Northern Virginia Community College


Established:	1965
Type:	Public, 2-year, community college
President:	Dr. Robert G. Templin, Jr.
Location:	Annandale, Virginia, USA
Campus:	8 campuses in Northern Virginia
Website:	http://www.nvcc.edu

Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), comprising several locations in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., is the second largest multi-campus community college in the United States and the largest educational institution in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The college is colloquially referred to as "NOVA."

Since its establishment at the Annandale Campus in 1965, NOVA has added additional locations: Alexandria Campus; Manassas Campus; Woodbridge Campus; Loudoun Campus in (Sterling); a Medical Education Campus (in Springfield); an extension of the Alexandria Campus in Arlington, called the Arlington Center; and an extension of the Loudoun Campus in Reston, called the Reston Center. In 2003-2004, the college enrolled 63,000 students in credit courses and some 250,000 more in non-credit offerings. The student body is economically and ethnically diverse, and a very large number of enrollees are international students or immigrants.

The school offers a wide variety of courses, and encourages students to enroll in four-year colleges after completing their NOVA education. To do so, it fosters a system of preferred transfers into public colleges and universities located in the Commonwealth, primarily George Mason University in Fairfax, the only public four-year school in Northern Virginia, but also other public four-year schools in Virginia such as UVA in Charlottesville, Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, and Longwood University in Farmville. Private Washington-area schools recruit at NOVA also, including Georgetown, Trinity Washington University, and GW, as well as out-of-area and out-of state schools such as Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania, West Virginia University, and even the University of Missouri at Kansas City.

NOVA is served by a library system extending across all six campuses and the Arlington Center. NOVA Libraries contain over 250,000 volumes and subscribe to over 200 databases, many of these purchased through the Virtual Library of Virginia, meaning that NOVA has access to many of the same resources as the other colleges and universities in Virginia.

NOVA is part of the Virginia Community College System. The college's president is Dr. Robert G. Templin, Jr. Its fundraising arm, established in 1979, is the NVCC Educational Foundation. The NVCCEF has a Board of Directors, chaired by Phil Sparks, and its Executive Director is John Ruffino. Largely through the foundation's efforts, NOVA has been able to fund an increasing number of scholarships, and in 2001 completed the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center on the Alexandria Campus.