This summer—with three important campus buildings nearing completion—Longwood leadership took time to reflect on the significance of building names, both at Longwood and around the country.

“There is a moment of reckoning and commitment that the names of our buildings fully reflect the values of our institution, and of the people who live, learn and work in them every day,” said President W. Taylor Reveley IV.

With that in mind, Longwood announced new names for three existing buildings and christened another that will open this fall.

The new 43,000-square foot academic building in the heart of campus will bear the name of longtime faculty member Dr. Edna Allen Bledsoe Dean, who taught in the social work program for more than 30 years. Dean, who was Longwood’s first Black tenured professor and received Longwood’s Honorary Alumni Award in 2020, died July 1. She was an inspiration for generations of students, whom she helped guide through often turbulent times.

The new building—to be referred to as Allen Hall in recognition and in honor of Dean’s broader family and their generations of strong connection to Farmville and Prince Edward County—will provide state-of-the-art learning spaces and faculty offices for several disciplines.

Moving south from Allen Hall are the two fully renovated 10-story residence halls that will both be open this fall—one for the first time—complete with their new entrance on Main Street.

These structures will be newly named to honor two figures from a pivotal era. Barbara Johns, renowned for her heroism and leadership in the civil rights movement when she was just 16, will be honored with the naming of the building closest to the Moton Museum. The second tower will be named in honor of Gordon Moss, a Longwood history faculty member from 1944-69 and a campus leader who was stalwart in his support of civil rights in Prince Edward County in the face of Massive Resistance in the 1950s and 1960s.

The high-rise structures, originally built on campus in 1969 and 1970, previously bore the names of Jabez Curry and Robert Frazer, two 19th-century figures with meaningful ties to the institution. Curry played a significant role in advocacy and development of public education in Virginia and throughout the South. During the Civil War, he also served in the Confederate Congress. For several years beginning in the late 19th century, Frazer served as president of the State Female Normal School, as Longwood was then known. In early adulthood during the Civil War, he was a Confederate soldier.

Last on the list of buildings getting new names is Ruffner Hall.

“Events nationally and around Virginia have drawn attention to the numerous buildings statewide named for William Ruffner, the only other 19th-century figure for whom a Longwood structure was named in decades past,” said Reveley.

Ruffner, who had been a slave owner, helped found the system of public education in Virginia after the Civil War, but on a segregated basis. He also served as president of the State Female Normal School for several years in the 1880s.

“Like with the high-rise buildings, I believe it is time also to turn the page on the name of Ruffner Hall,” Reveley said.