Location and Access

The Wesleyan Summer Gifted Program takes place on the campus of West Virginia Wesleyan College, which is located in Buckhannon in north-central West Virginia in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains.

West Virginia Wesleyan College is a private liberal arts college with an enrollment of about 1,400 students from 35 U.S. states and 26 countries. The school was founded in 1890 by the West Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church.

In 2014, U.S. News & World Report ranked West Virginia Wesleyan College 14th on the list of Best Colleges in the South region. It was also listed as one of the "Best Southeastern Colleges" by the Princeton Review in 2011. West Virginia Wesleyan College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.

The campus has 23 major buildings of Georgian architecture and has a park-like feeling with a variety of local flora, such as white oak, spruce trees, dogwoods, laurels, and rhododendrons.

The city of Buckhannon has a current population of about 5500 people. It was established as a town in 1816 along the Buckhannon River. One of the new initiatives for Buckhannon is incorporating the arts in city planning with numerous public art sites in town. The city recognize the benefits arts programming brings to citizens and the power that art has to transform lives and bring joy to others. Buckhannon also hosts Festival Fridays at Jawbone Park downtown in which music, entertainment, children’s activities, and demonstrations are featured each Friday during the summer months. This is a favorite event for our campers each summer.

Buckhannon is linked to Interstate 79 by Route 33, which is a 4-lane divided highway. Buckhannon is only a few hours away from major cities such as Charleston, WV, Pittsburgh, PA, and Washington, DC.

For campers coming from much farther away, there is a regional airport located 35 miles away in Clarksburg, WV and larger airports located in Morgantown, WV (65 miles away), Charleston, WV (110 miles away), and Pittsburgh, PA (140 miles away).