Those who have never heard of Mountain State University need not be ashamed.

The school is based in the southern West Virginia town of Beckley, some 260 miles from the Beaver County Courthouse. It's not a large school, with about 2,000 students on its main campus. It's not blessed with an Ivy League academic pedigree; it accepts 100 percent of applicants and serves mostly to make education available to people in the Beckley area. It did win this year's basketball championship, but it plays in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, several rungs down from the major-college level.

So what in the world was Mountain State doing holding commencement June 30 at the Community College of Beaver County?

The answer: The university was honoring the first 15 graduates of its Center campus.

That answer, of course, leads to the follow-up question: Why in the world does a fairly obscure West Virginia university have a branch campus in Beaver County?

"I think I probably played a role in that decision," said Jim Silosky, the school's executive vice president and, not coincidentally, a native of Rochester Borough.

Mr. Silosky said Mountain State had long been aggressive in distance education, offering classes at more than a dozen locations in West Virginia as well as online course work. When administrators decided to expand to other states, they chose to put one branch in Orlando, Fla., where university President Charles Polk ran a community college for 16 years, and one in Mr. Silosky's home county.

School leaders leased a former restaurant site in the C.J. Betters Plaza on Brodhead Road, renovated it to include two classrooms, a computer lab, offices and a lunchroom and opened in August 2004.

Students with some college can pursue a bachelor's degree in strategic leadership; college graduates can pursue a master's degree in strategic leadership. Classes are launched in "cohorts," groups of up to 15 students taking all the classes together. Cohorts meet for four hours once a week, and do both collaborative and independent work online the rest of the week.

The program is designed for working adults, and offers a degree in 18 months, though for the bachelor's degree, students will have to have about two-thirds of their college credits completed elsewhere.

Mountain State is in line with several higher education trends, as universities nationwide are delving into the adult student market, blending Web-based course work with face-to-face classes and holding classes away from traditional campuses.

Locally, Geneva College offers a similar program leading to degrees in leadership, and Robert Morris University offers a degree-completion program with bachelor's degrees in organizational studies or professional communications and information technology.

Another option for students is the Regional Learning Alliance in Cranberry, which hosts classes from 16 institutions, and many Pittsburgh colleges and universities have programs as well.

"All the universities are trying to reach adults where they are," said Betsy Kubacki, enrollment coordinator for Mountain State.

Sherry Kinkead, who got her master's degree June 30 and was named Student of the Year, said that, despite the 18-month schedule, there's nothing watered down about Mountain State's course work.

"It's a very intensive program," she said. "There's a lot of work you have to do outside the classroom, probably 15 to 20 hours a week, and online assignments offered every week." She said there's a constant online dialogue among instructors and cohort members.

"That was my whole life, besides work, for those 18 months," Ms. Kinkead said. "The first thing I said to my husband after graduation was, 'Thank you for all those Saturday mornings and Saturday evenings of tiptoeing around so I could get my work done.' "

Ms. Kinkead is exactly the kind of student Mountain State is out to serve. She's 48, has a degree from Penn State, and is in a leadership position with Early Head Start of Beaver County. She has a passion for learning, with tentative plans to earn a doctorate and teach on the college level, but she also wants leadership skills to apply to her job.

"I like teaching new people when they come into the agency," she said. "I wanted to continue to hone my skills, continue to learn how to mentor people."

In both its bachelor's and master's programs, Mountain State has a strong guideline that students must be at least 25 years old and working to enter the bachelor's program.

"They take the real-world issues that are out there in their lives and discuss them in the classroom," said Rick Weil, the school's one full-time teacher. With such relevant discussions, the students end up learning a lot from each other.

Mr. Weil said they were also far more motivated than the typical college student.

Students who lack the outside credits necessary for a bachelor's degree can earn them at the Community College of Beaver County, which is right up the road from Mountain State.

Ms. Kubacki said the area was ripe for such degree-completion programs, because many people here pursued two-year technical degrees geared toward working in the industries which used to dominate the landscape. But with the economy here rapidly evolving, the job markets call more and more for full college degrees.

That economic change in the Pittsburgh area was striking to Mr. Weil, a Freedom native who returned home a year ago after 25 years in the Air Force and a teaching stint at a South Carolina college.

"Pittsburgh's made a wonderful transition into technology," he said. "It says something about when people are faced with adversity, how well they can adapt."

Mr. Silosky, who remains in West Virginia but now travels to Beaver County regularly, said "I'm absolutely thrilled" that Mountain State has a presence in Beaver County.

"Did I ever think I'd be back home with an institution of higher education? No, I didn't."