List of presidents of Longwood University

Longwood University, a public liberal arts college in Farmville, Virginia, is led by a president selected by a Board of Visitors, who are appointed by the Governor of Virginia. Beginning with its founding as a private finishing school in 1839, through its 1884 conversion to a public normal school, and its postwar transition to a coeducational university, Longwood has had twenty-seven presidents. The current president is W. Taylor Reveley IV, who was inaugurated in 2013.

Principals (1839–1884)

In the private finishing school era, when the school was known as Farmville Female Seminary and later Farmville Female College, the school president was known as a principal.

#	Name	Years	Reference	Image
1	Solomon Lea	1839–1843	[1]
2	Lorenzo Lea	1843–1846	[1]
3	Lorenzo Coburn	1846–1850	[1]
4	John Benjamin Tinsley	1850–1855	[1]
5	Benjamin Gould	1855–1859	[1]
6	George La Monte	1859–1862	[1]
7	Arnaud Preot	1862–1869	[1]
8	S.F. Nottingham	1869–1870	[1]
9	Frances Marion Edwards	1871–1872	[1]
10	James Crawley	1872–1873	[1]
11	Paul Whitehead	1873–1882	[1]
12	Mary Elizabeth Carter	1882–1884	[1]

Presidents (1884–present)

Following the Virginia government's purchase of the then-Farmville College in 1884 and conversion into a normal school, the head official of Longwood became known as a president.

#	Name	Years	Reference	Image
13	William Henry Ruffner	1884–1887	[1]
14	John Atkinson Cunningham	1887–1897	[1]
15	Robert Frazer	1898–1902	[1]
16	Joseph L. Jarman	1902–1946	[1]
17	Dabney S. Lancaster	1946–1955	[1]
18	Francis Lankford, Jr.	1955–1965	[1]
19	James Heflin Newman	1965–1967	[1]
20	Henry Irving Willett, Jr.	1967–1981	[1]
21	Janet Daly Greenwood	1981–1987	[1]
22	George Robert Haley	1987–1988	[1]
23	William F. Dorrill	1988–1996	[1]
24	Patricia Cormier	1996–2010	[1]
25	Patrick Finnegan	2010–2012	[1]
26	W. Taylor Reveley IV	2013–present	[2]