On September 24, 1888,
James Solomon Russell of the
Protestant Episcopal Church founded the
Saint Paul Normal and Industrial School, with fewer than a dozen students. The school was intended chiefly to develop African-American teachers, a critical and prestigious job in the late 19th and early 20th-century South. In 1914 the school boasted that "The location of the school in the heart of the Black Belt of Virginia, with a Negro population of 100,000 almost at its very doors, is most favorable for the prosecution of uplift work." In 1941 the name of the institution was changed to '''Saint Paul's Polytechnic Institute''' when the state granted the school authority to offer a four-year program. The first bachelor's degree was awarded in 1944. In 1957 the college adopted its present name to reflect its liberal arts and teacher education curricula. In June 2012, the college's regional accreditor, the
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, stripped the college of its accreditation. Although the college had been on probation, it lost its accreditation for "violations concerning financial resources, institutional effectiveness in support services, institutional effectiveness in academics and student services, lack of terminal degrees for too many faculty members, and a lack of financial stability." The college sued the accreditor, and two months later a court issued a preliminary injunction reinstating the college's probationary accreditation to protect it during further legal proceedings. Although supporters worked on plans to have
St. Augustine's University in
Raleigh, North Carolina, another historically black university of Episcopal heritage, acquire St Paul's, the deal was abandoned in May 2013. Shortly thereafter, St. Paul's College reported to SACS that it would close on June 30, 2013. ==Academics==