MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — For the second year in a row, the lighting of Woodburn Hall on the downtown campus of West Virginia University will mark the beginning of the holiday season.
This is also the year Woodburn will celebrate 150 years as the centerpiece of campus. It opened in 1876 as New Hall and has served as the WVU library, The Daily Athenaeum student newspaper, and the WVU Cadet Corps.
The first female WVU students took classes there, agriculture students tried unsuccessfully to garden out in the Circle, and commencements were held up on the 3rd floor. In 1901, the structure was christened with the name we know it by now.
The Woodburn Hall lighting ceremony was first held in 1987 and continued until 2011 when a $3.9 million renovation to the building ended the tradition.
In 2025, the ceremony was revived with about 8,000 LED lights in a partnership with Huntington Bank and Northeast Natural Energy. At the time, the new president of WVU and history professor said,”We lost a lot of traditions to COVID and need a unifying event like this. Colleges often take their host communities for granted, overlooking how events like move-in day can disrupt local life. Traditions have to be real, and they have to resonate. What better way to say ‘thank you’ than sharing an iconic kick start to the holiday?”
The lights will outline windows, the upper dormers, roof line, and clock tower, which is over 80 feet tall.
The 2026 version of the event will include President Michael T. Benson; Lonna Gean Tucker, a WVU Medicine Golisano Children’s patient from Fredericktown, Pennsylvania; her parents, David and Gena, and her brother, Liam; Ben Susman, graduate teaching assistant and Ronald Lewis Fellow, WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Department of History; and University faculty, staff, and students.