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The catalog of William & Mary includes course descriptions and information about the campus.

Catalogs from 1829 to the present are now available through the W&M Digital Archive. Modern college catalogs are best remembered for detailed course descriptions and information about degree requirements, but catalogs also include other important information about the university, its people, buildings, and history. In university catalogs you will find lists of faculty and staff, highlights of facilities and services, academic policies, descriptions of student groups, and much more information intended to inform current and attract potential students. Catalogs from the 19th and early 20th centuries are a treasure trove for researchers of not only William & Mary history, but also family history as they list faculty, staff, students, and alumni.

As the university has grown, separate catalogs for schools and divisions have been published by William & Mary including the School of Marine Science, School of Education, and Graduate Arts & Sciences Program. Recent catalogs from these programs are available here, but the majority of these catalogs have not yet been digitized. Historical divisions of William & Mary that no longer exist such as the Extension and Evening Colleges, Richmond Division (Virginia Commonwealth University), Norfolk Branch (Old Dominion University), etc. have not yet been digitized. Paper copies are available in Swem Library's Special Collections Research Center.

Catalogs Available in the Special Collections Research Center

This is a list of the William & Mary Catalogs in the Swem Library's Special Collections Research Center.

Undergraduate Catalog

1829-1855

1856-1857

None available

1858-1860

college closed May 1862-Aug 1865

1865-1866

None available

July 1868-Oct 1869 college closed

1870

None available

1874

None available

1881-1888: The College was closed.

1888-1899

1900-1971

1972-1973: no catalog published

1974-present

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Prior to 1966, graduate studies was included in the undergraduate catalog. Issues from 1966 to the present are available.

Finance and Business Administration

Undergraduate & Graduate Catalogs

1920

1920-1921

1921-1922

None available

1926-1927

None available

1969-1970

None available

1972-2008

School of Marine Science

1951

None available

1969-1974

None available

1979-2008

Law School

1920-1923

None available

1933-1935

None available

1941-1942

None available

1944-1963

None available

1964-1995

Catalogs from the School of Law are available in the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository.

School of Education

1961-1963 (not a graduate school at this time)

None available

1968-ongoing

Richmond Division

Richmond Professional Institute

1939-1940

None available

1941-1946

None available

1948-1950

None available

1952-1954

None available

1956-1959

Richmond School of Social Work & Public Health

1917-1938

Richmond Extension Division Courses by W&M and UVA

1921-1925

Norfolk Division

Extension Courses

1927

None available

1930-1955

None available

1957-1962

Christopher Newport

1962-1967 evening classes

1961-1964

*missing

1968-1975

Richard Bland College

1960-2008

 

Want to find out more?

To search for further material, visit the Special Collections Research Center's Search Tool List for other resources to help you find materials of interest.

Questions? Have ideas or updates for articles you'd like to see? Contact the Special Collections Research Center at spcoll@wm.edu or 757-221-3090.

A note about the contents of this site

This website contains the best available information from known sources at the time it was written. Unfortunately, many of the early original records of William & Mary were destroyed by fires, military occupation, and the normal effects of time. The information in this website is not complete, and it changes as we continue to research and uncover new sources.