Hollins: Virginia's First Women's College
Near Roanoke, Virginia
The community of Hollins, just north of Roanoke in the Roanoke Valley, takes its name from the institution that defines it: Hollins University, one of Virginia's earliest colleges for women. The school opened in eighteen forty-two as Valley Union Seminary, co-educational from the start. A decade later it became a women's institution, and in eighteen fifty-five it was renamed Hollins Institute in honor of John and Ann Halsey Hollins, whose financial gifts kept it alive.
For generations the school was led by Charles Cocke and then his daughter Matty Cocke, who became the first woman to serve as president of a Virginia college. Hollins Institute became Hollins College in nineteen eleven and Hollins University in nineteen ninety-eight. Generations of writers and artists have passed through its campus, making the school particularly known for its creative writing tradition.
The small community wrapped around the campus carries the family name of the benefactors who, more than one hundred seventy years ago, helped ensure that higher education in Virginia would not belong only to men.
