Courtesy University Archives University president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg presides over the ground-breaking ceremony for the Virginia campus in 1990.

GW owns 90 acres in Ashburn, Va., just five miles north of Dulles International Airport. The Virginia Campus is known as the ³flagship research and technology campus,² and offers nine graduate programs in three schools, two certification programs and 13 research centers and institutes.

The focal point of the campus is the Northern Virginia Campus and Research Center, which was described in the July 16, 1990, Hatchet as being the ³centerpiece of the University Center, a corporate community being developed in Loudoun County by GW and the Charles E. Smith Company.² At that time, the groundbreaking ceremony of the first building of the Virginia Campus had just been held, and the administration was looking forward to the 73,000 square-foot NVC that would soon be in place. The idea behind the Virginia Campus was to tie graduate education into the community in an effort to boost the economy while offering continuing education to its residents. The effort conveniently supplied jobs for many students during and after their graduate work. The community and the campus were structured to be interdependent economically and therefore mutually beneficial to both.

University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is quoted in the same July 16 article: ³Thirty or 40 years ago, the idea that an academic campus could be so interwoven with the needs of the business world and the greater community might have been greeted with actual horror. But, in the America of 1990, the same idea not only makes good sense, but perfect sense.²

The Virginia Campus has greatly expanded in size over the past 13 years. In addition to the NVC, it now houses other research centers such as the National Crash Analysis Center and READI: Response to Emergencies and Disasters Institute, as well as academic programs.

­Jessalyn Pinneo