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Lindenwood University is a four-year liberal arts institution in St. Charles, Missouri, just northwest of St. Louis and St. Louis County. Lindenwood offers many undergraduate and graduate degrees, including a newly authorized Doctor of Education program that began in January 2007.^[1]

Lindenwood has a current enrollment of 15,000 students. Programs of note are Education, Mass Communications, Fine and Performing Arts, Christian Ministry Studies, and Business. The main St. Charles campus is currently at 1.8 km² (450 acres). Lindenwood also operates satellite campuses in Wentzville, O'Fallon, south St. Louis County, northwest St. Louis County, Moscow Mills, Washington, Weldon Spring, Belleville, Illinois, and the Daniel Boone Campus in Defiance.

Lindenwood University was founded in 1827 by George and Mary Easton Sibley. It is the second-oldest higher-education institution west of the Mississippi River. The story actually begins in 1812 at Fort Sibley, now known as the town of Arrow Rock, Missouri. The fort was established to help with the situation regarding the Native Americans. In 1826, Major George Sibley co-signed a $20,000 note, but his partner bailed out of the deal and left. Sibley, now left with next to nothing, took possession of everything his former partner owned--which happened to be little more than 0.5 km² (120 acres) of land in St. Charles, Missouri known as the "Linden Wood" because of the large amount of linden trees that grew there. In 1827, the Sibleys started the Linden Wood School for Girls, as Mary Sibley already had been running a school in St. Charles.

By 1989, though, Lindenwood was in trouble. Enrollment was around 800 students and the school was nearly broke. Dennis Spellmann took over and immediately began to implement changes. He eliminated co-ed dorms and put an emphasis on a "values centered" approach in the classroom. Some of his changes did cause controversy for the school, though. One such incident was the "Pork for Tuition" program that was started in 2002. The program was designed to help rural families pay for their tuition by accepting their livestock in return for discounts. The animals were then processed and used as pork sausage, sausage, and hamburger in the school cafeteria. The program became a topic on NBC's Today Show where host Matt Lauer called the school "Pork Chop U".^[2] The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals later staged a small protest in Saint Charles.^[3]

Lindenwood was also in the news briefly in February of 2005 when Spellmann refused a National Park Service grant that would have provided $200,000 for the repair of a historic building (the Daniel Boone Home) owned by the university. Spellmann reportedly said that the bureaucracy involved in a federal grant was too great to be worthwhile, and requested that the government instead apply the money to paying down the federal budget deficit.

In 2006, Dennis Spellmann died after a long battle with cancer. At the time of his death, the school had more than $50 million in endowments. Dr. James Evans, who had been serving as the university's acting president since Spellmann's death, was chosen as Lindenwood's twenty-first president on February 9, 2007. ^[4]

A member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the Lindenwood Lions compete within the Heart of America Conference and has teams in other organizations. The university boasts a total of 39 sports teams. The university has been fully accredited by the North Central Association of the Higher Learning Commission since 1915 and received its ten-year renewal in 2003-2004.

• Greg Amsinger, Sports personality, College Sports Television 2001
• DeDe Dorsey, American football player
• Shandi Finnessey, Miss USA 2004, Dancing with the Stars
• Dan McLaughlin, St. Louis Cardinals play by play announcer, St. Louis Blues on-ice reporter

Official Websites

• Lindenwood University
• 89.1 "The Wood" Website

Unofficial Website

• Lindenwood Philosophy Department

1. ^ Kumar, Kavita. "Lindenwood gets OK to begin first doctoral program." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 20 Dec. 2006. STLtoday.com. 2 Jan. 2007 <http://www.stltoday.com>.
2. ^ Rock, Steve. "University accepts livestock for tuition." The South End 10 Sep. 2004. 25 Jan. 2007 <http://southend.wayne.edu>.
3. ^ "Dennis Spellmann, 70, President who Remade Struggling College, Dies." New York Times 3 Sept. 2006. Nytimes.com. 25 Jan. 2007 <http://www.nytimes.com>.
4. ^ Anthony, Shane. "Jim Evans is Lindenwood University's new president St. Louis Post-Dispatch 10 Feb. 2007. STLtoday.com. 17 Feb. 2007 <http://www.stltoday.com>.