Wesley College (Delaware)
Wesley College was a private liberal arts college in Dover, Delaware. It was acquired by Delaware State University (DSU) in 2021 and is now the DSU Downtown campus. History The institution was founded in 1873 as Wilmington Conference Academy, a prep school. During this period Annie Jump Cannon, a prominent astronomer who pioneered stellar classification, graduated valedictorian from Wilmington Conference Academy in 1880. It became a two-year college in 1918 and renamed the Wesley Collegiate Institute. It was renamed again in 1941 as Wesley Junior College, and again in 1958 as Wesley College. The institution conferred its first four-year degrees in 1978. In its last decades, the college experienced significant financial challenges and relied on state funding and grants. At one point in 2019, had the state not given Wesley $3 million, students would have lost access to federal financial aid and salaries would have been at risk. In early 2021, the college faculty voted "no confidence" against Wesley's last president, Robert E. Clark II, but Wesley College's board of trustees subsequently dismissed the resolution and supported him. On June 30, 2021, Delaware State University (DSU) began the formal process of purchasing Wesley College. This made DSU "the first historically