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==History==
In 1872, the [[w:Virginia General Assembly|Virginia General Assembly]] purchased the facilities of [[Preston and Olin Institute]], a small Methodist school in rural [[Montgomery County]] with federal funds provided by the [[w:Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act]]. The Commonwealth incorporated a new institution on that site, a state-supported land grant military institute called the '''Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College'''.
Under the 1891–1907 presidency of [[John M. McBryde]], the school organized its academic programs into a traditional four-year college. The evolution of the school's programs led to an 1896 name change to '''Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute'''. The "Agricultural and Mechanical College" portion of the name was popularly omitted almost immediately, and the name was officially changed to '''Virginia Polytechnic Institute''' in 1944. During those years, there was a short-lived merger with [[Radford University]] which at the time was a women's college. In 1923, VPI changed a policy of four-year compulsory participation in the [[Corps of Cadets]] to two years. In [[1931]], VPI began teaching classes at [[w:Old Dominion University]], then the Norfolk Division of the [[w:College of William and Mary]]. This program eventually developed into a two-year engineering program after which students could transfer to VPI for their third and fourth year.
