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 Bridgewater College
was founded as one of the first coeducational colleges in Virginia,
Bridgewater strives to be an academic community with a
distinctively Christian atmosphere and a wholesome balance of learning,
service, and leisure. The College endeavors to be a community of
excellence in which each student is treated with respect. There is
mutual concern and support from the faculty and administration, and each
student develops a sense of responsibility to others both near and far.
Bridgewater promotes a breadth of intellectual experience as well as
proficiency in specific subject fields. Broadly speaking, its primary
academic objective is a comprehensive appreciation of the social
sciences, the humanities, and the natural sciences.
Developing the total person is taken seriously at Bridgewater. On the
premise that recognition of one's capabilities is the beginning of
wisdom, Bridgewater offers a liberal arts education designed to help the
student gain as complete a self-understanding as possible. As a liberal
arts college, it helps students discover how they think, what they feel,
why they act as they do, and who they are. Life at Bridgewater College
can become a journey of exploration and discovery to the student who is
committed unreservedly to the process of a liberal arts education.
Quick
Facts
Founded in 1880 as one of the first coeducational colleges in Virginia.
National recognition for our Personal Development Portfolio Program (PDP),
a unique holistic approach to educating students for life.
Listed in the seventh edition of Barron's Best Buys in College
Education.
Outstanding financial aid programs:
— Academic scholarships (ACE) based on academic performance.
— $5.8 million in academic scholarships received by 810 students.
— Over $10.9 million in institutional aid spent on financial awards.
— Some form of financial assistance received by over 98% of our
students.
Member of the NCAA Division III and Old Dominion Athletic Conference.
— Nine intercollegiate sports for men.
— Ten intercollegiate sports for women.
— Coed equestrian program.
— Extensive intramural competition.
Strong enrollment pattern during the last eight years.
— College grew from 860 in 1994 to 1374 in the fall of 2003.
— Enrollment increase of 25% since 1999.
Overall retention 86%.
Honors Program that provides additional challenges and opportunities for
outstanding students.
Student-Faculty ratio: 14 to 1.
61% of classes/laboratories have enrollments below 20.
Class size, average freshmen lecture-20.
Class size, average upper-class lecture-17.
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The education offered at
Bridgewater is broad, deep, and liberating. It can emancipate one from
narrow provincialism and from the distortion of subjective bias; it can
free individual creativity and promote the art of the examined life; it
can develop the realization that the gift of life demands service to
humanity. It helps to conserve basic values while recognizing the need
for change. It leads one, while acknowledging that truth is not fully
known, to submit to the best and fullest truth that can be known.
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