Lindenwood University Preview

Lindenwood University is located in St. Charles, Missouri, within a short drive (20 to 40 minutes depending on traffic) of downtown St. Louis. Lindenwood was founded in 1827 by Mary Sibley as a women's school. This makes it the oldest university established west of the Mississippi River (a fact that Saint Louis University contends). Lindenwood is twelve years older than the University of Missouri (the first publicly funded university founded west of the Mississippi).

The school was on the verge of bankruptcy in the late 1980s when the late Dr. Dennis Spellmann assumed presidency. The school is now one of a handful of colleges in the country that is completely debt free. With the school being debt free, one would immediately think that the campus is outdated. However since I started attending in 2002, the school has built a new student building, five new dorms, renovated the football stadium, a baseball/softball complex and started construction on a new fine arts center.

Since I mentioned the dorms, there are seven men's dorms and nine for women. The men's halls are Ayres, Cobbs, Eastlick, Flowers, Guffey, Mathews and Parker Halls. The women's dorms are named Sibley, Niccolls, Irwin, McCluer, Blanton, Calvert Rogers, Rauch Memorial, Stumberg Halls and Watson Lodge. Sibley Hall is the oldest building on campus and is on the site of the original dormitory for the college. The current building was built in the late 1800s and is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. The second oldest building on campus is Ayres Hall (which was my home for three years).

Other buildings on campus are...Roemer Hall (classes and administration offices), Young Hall (science and math), Spellmann Center (computers and some administration....also where the radio station, dining hall and a large meeting room are located), Butler Hall (teacher's offices), Memorial Arts Buildings (business and teacher's offices), Butler Library, Harmon Hall (currently a fine arts building), Hyland Performance Arena (athletics classes and the basketball court), the Field House (coaches offices), an Fitness Center, the renovated Hunter Stadium, the Lou Brock Sports Complex (baseball and softball fields) and the Culturtal Center (design and fine arts).

Some of the campus rules may seem a little old fashioned to today's young prosepctive students but to be honest, they are not as bad as they sound. The worst sounding one is no opposite sex visitation is allowed in the dorms. This can be changed during the semester if the dorm is well behaved and well kept. The school's reasoning for this is well founded. A couple years before I arrived on campus there was a rape/murder in one of the dorms when two young men took a girl to their room. The story was extremely gruesome and I don't wish to go into details. This does not seem to scare anyone away fromt he campus though as they were overbooked my last year in attendance. The other main rule that seems to draw complaints is that Lindenwood is a "dry" campus. No alcohol is allowed on campus. As you might guess, this does not prevent students from drinking...in fact it does not stop students from having alcohol on campus.

Some other minor rules are dress code type and more out of being respectful to teachers and other students. The biggest one I had trouble with was no hats in buildings. I tend to feel naked without a ballcap on but I was willing to take it off if asked. Some professors don't really care but most will ask you to remove it. Not a major deal though.

So you are an athlete? Lindenwood gives athletic institutional grants to all athletes. The Lindenwood Lions compete in NAIA (Lindenwood is the largest NAIA institution in terms of enrollment). They compete in the Heart of America Athletic Conference. They The school offers the following sports for men: baseball, basketball, bowling, cheerleading, cross country, football, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, roller hockey, shooting, soccer, swimming/diving, tennis, indoor/outdoor track and field, volleyball, water polo and wrestling. On the women's side, Lindenwood offers: basketball, bowling, cheerleading, cross country, dance, field hockey, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, shooting, soccer, softball, swimming/diving, tennis, indoor/outdoor track and field, volleyball and water polo.

All sports are fully supported by the school and there is little to no fundraising involved. The school also does not cut athletes from it's teams. So you probably wonder, well with all those sports...how good are the programs?

Baseball - competed in the 2007 NAIA College World Series
Bowling - Men's 2005 and Women's 2006 National Champions (USBC)
Football - 2005 HAAC Champions and appearance in the NAIA playoffs
Soccer - 2004 Men's National Champion
Wrestling - 2002 and 2005 NAIA National Team Champion (and 21 individual national champions)
Shooting - Four time National Champion
Indoor Track - Men's three time National Champions (including the past two years)
Cross Country - Two men's individual national champions
Outdoor track - Men's 2003 Team National Champions and 15 individual champions
Outdoor track - Women's two time National runner ups and 8 individual champions
Golf - 2002 Women's individual national champion
Roller hockey - Won 90 consecutive games in winning multiple national championship (current streak)

Lindenwood also offers 48 degree programs and five pre-professional programs. The school is a wonderful academic institution with high stadnards and a high level of excellence in acedmics and athletics. For more information go to http://www.lindenwood.edu