The West Virginia University downtown campus occupies a compact hillside above the river, its centerpiece Woodburn Circle — a semicircle of solid red-brick Victorian buildings from the 1870s and 1880s that gives the university a sense of weight and history. The buildings survived while much around them changed, and the circle remains one of the more handsome university quadrangles in the region.
At the center of campus activity is the Mountainlair student union, a three-story building always busy with students. It has food, a bowling alley, game rooms, and regular events — it's where you go if you want to understand what undergraduate life here looks like. During football season the Lair becomes a congregation point before and after games.
The campus is open to visitors and walkable in an hour. From Woodburn Circle, paths lead down toward the river and the historic downtown.