With his accession ended the formative period of the institution, which now began its rapid growth into the proper functions and domain of a college.

Cushing secured an endowment and built the present college edifice and the president's residence.

Dr. Cushing's health was shattered by an accidental discharge from an electric battery while he was experimenting before his class.

[2] Cushing Hall (originally known as New College) at Hampden–Sydney was built during his tenure and was subsequently named in his honor.

[3] President Cushing graduated an unusually large number of famous men: William Ballard Preston (Secretary of the Navy under President Zachary Taylor), Dr. Thomas Atkinson (Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina), Hugh A. Garland (Virginia Delegate and Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives), William A. Daniel (Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court), Congressman William M. Tredway, Landon C. Garland (President of Randolph–Macon College and Chancellor of Vanderbilt University), Jesse Burton Harrison, who was a vocal opponent of slavery as well as a historian, who died too early to have produced the work that his talent suggested he would produce, Maryland Governor Thomas W. Ligon, Dr. John Lycan Kirkpatrick (President of Davidson College), and Dr. John M. P. Atkinson (President of Hampden–Sydney College).