Virginia Alice Cottey was a woman of vision. Guided by the belief that women deserved the same education as men, she founded Cottey College in 1884 to educate women to be “knowledgeable, thinking, mature adults.”
Backed by the $3,000 she and her sisters had saved, Virginia Alice Cottey opened Vernon Seminary on September 8, 1884, in Nevada, Missouri. In 1886, the founder proudly renamed her school Cottey College.
It was important to the founder that a Cottey education be of the highest caliber. As president, Virginia Alice Cottey maintained strict curriculum guidelines. In the 1904-05 catalog she wrote:
We have endeavored to make our course of study thoroughly practical and adapted to the needs of young women of the present day. It has been arranged with a special view of making our pupils accurate thinkers, and...also of giving them a love for good books and a strong desire for further research...
In 1926, Virginia Alice Cottey became a member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood (a philanthropic educational organization) and realized that the organization’s educational purposes matched the principles by which she guided her College. Deciding that P.E.O. and Cottey belonged together, she presented the College to the P.E.O. Sisterhood in 1927.
With the support of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, Virginia Alice Cottey’s dream continued. In 1939, the founder was present for the dedication of P.E.O. Hall, a dormitory that allowed the enrollment to increase. In 1941, the College was accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.
Virginia Alice Cottey died July 16, 1940, at the age of 92. Her devotion to her ideals encouraged the aspirations of Cottey faculty, students, and alumnae for 56 years. Her dream and its guiding principle, as stated in the 1907-08 catalog, continues to inspire:
The College was founded...for the purpose of affording [women] superior facilities for obtaining a thorough, practical, yet liberal education, at very reasonable rates...A strong faculty, trained in the best colleges and universities, will strive in every legitimate way to awaken and deepen the interest necessary to success.
In the years following, the College expanded the physical plant and the student body. In 1949, the College welcomed international students, and became known as the “College of World Friendship.” Cottey College’s commitment to women’s education remained firm and viable during the turbulent 1960s and 1970s when some women’s colleges were unable to respond to the increasing academic interests of women. Cottey celebrated its centennial in 1984 with the theme “A Century of Commitment to Women.”
Response to a changing world calls for ambitious planning and steady progress. In the last decade of the twentieth century, Cottey celebrated renewed growth by dedicating two new buildings—the Haidee and Allen Wild Center for the Arts in 1990, and the Rubie Burton Academic Center in 1998. The Judy and Glenn Rogers Fine Arts Building opened in 2015, enhancing fine arts instructional space.
Cottey College advanced its academic offerings in 2011 by establishing Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees, and now offers 24 baccalaureate programs of study.