The University of Charleston is a private college in Charleston, West Virginia of approximately 1,000 students. Locals usually refer to the school as "UC".

The school was founded in 1888 as the Barboursville Seminary of the Southern Methodist Church. That church had lost control of the institution now known as Marshall University in nearby Huntington, West Virginia, during the Civil War. In 1901 it was renamed Morris Harvey College in honor of a major donor.

In 1935 the school moved to downtown Charleston and merged with Kanawha Junior College and affiliated with the Mason College of Fine Arts and Music. In 1942 the school became independent of the Methodist Church. Five years later, the school moved to its present campus in the Kanawha City section of Charleston.

The college fell on hard economic times in the 1970s, and eventually offered itself to the state as a state college. The state refused the gift. The school then decided to strengthen its ties with the local community and renamed itself the University of Charleston in 1978.

UC's athletic teams, known as the Golden Eagles, compete in the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in NCAA Division II.

The school is not related in any way with the much larger College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.