Lindenwood University is a private university in St. Charles, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1832 by George Champlin Sibley and Mary Easton Sibley as The Lindenwood School for Girls, it is the second-oldest higher-education institution west of the Mississippi River. Lindenwood offers undergraduate and graduate degrees through nine colleges and schools. Its enrollment was 6,992 students in 2021. The main academic and residential campus is located northwest of St. Louis, Missouri, in St. Charles.
History Founding and early history
Lindenwood University traces its roots back to George Champlin Sibley, an early 19th-century American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and politician, and his wife Mary Easton Sibley, an educator. In 1808, Acting Governor and friend Frederick Bates promoted Sibley to the position of chief factor at Fort Osage in western Missouri, near present-day Kansas City, Missouri. While at Fort Osage, Sibley immediately set to work creating relationships with the neighboring Osage tribes. He also met Mary Easton, the daughter of Rufus Easton, a prominent St. Louis attorney and Missouri's second Attorney General. The couple were married in 1815. During the Sibleys' time at Fort Osage, Mary began teaching the children at the fort.
In 1813, Sibley opened a temporary trading post at Fort Sibley, now known as the town of Arrow Rock, Missouri, which remained in operation until 1822. After the trading post shut down, George and Mary remained at Fort Osage, with George serving as postmaster until the fort closed in 1825. The couple then settled in St. Charles, where Mary began teaching family members and later, in 1832, other young women from the community. Lindenwood University is now considered the second-oldest higher-education institution west of the Mississippi River, after Saint Louis University, as well as the first women's college west of the Mississippi. In 1829, the Sibleys purchased of land, known as the "Linden Wood" because of the numerous linden trees. The Sibleys borrowed money and began converting the propoerty into a farm with livestock brought from Fort Osage. They built a cabin and outhouses and moved into Linden Wood in December 1829. As the work on Linden Wood continued, the idea of opening a boarding school evolved.
Mary Sibley took in students within a year of moving into the cabin. Her 12-year-old sister, Alby, became the first student at Linden Wood in the fall of 1830. A year later, the first two paying students arrived; in early 1832, the Sibleys made plans to expand the cabin to create a boarding school for women to over a dozen students During the 1830s, the school was known as The Boarding School for Young Ladies at Linden Wood, Missouri. Mary took charge of the boarding school and developed a strict curriculum that included literature, grammar, writing, spelling, and diction. French, music and piano, landscape painting, flower painting and needle work were available for an additional fee. The school was one of the first to require physical education, which included walking and dancing.
By the 1840s, the boarding school had grown to 30 students. As the enrollment expanded, the Sibleys added new rooms to the cabin. The continued improvements created a financial strain on the school and Mary Sibley traveled to the East Coast to solicit additional funding. In the early 1850s, the school was on the brink of closing when the Sibleys offered the property to the Presbyterian Church. In 1853, the school was incorporated by the Missouri Legislature and became known as the Lindenwood College for Women. The newly chartered college was placed under the control of 15 directors appointed by the Presbytery of St. Louis. On July 4, 1856, the cornerstone was laid for Sibley Hall, completed in July 1857. It replaced the cabins and was home to the entire school.Reminisces of Lindenwood. 1920. p 8.
George Sibley died in 1863. Following his death, the college charter was amended in 1870 to provide that the appointment of directors for the management of the college would be under the control of the Synod of Missouri instead of the Presbytery of St. Louis. A south wing was added to Sibley Hall in 1881 and a north wing in 1886. The school began expanding in the early 20th century with four new buildings constructed between 1900 and 1920.
In 1913, the school was accredited as a junior college by the North Central Association. Lindenwood received a $4 million bequest in 1918, the entire estate of the late Margaret Leggat Butler, wife of Colonel James Gay Butler, a Civil War veteran and philanthropist. The college used the funds to establish a permanent endowment and moved from a two-year to a four-year curriculum. A few years later, the college became a full member of the North Central Association.
The college became a co-educational institution in 1969 and changed its name from Lindenwood College for Women to Lindenwood Colleges, with a separate college for men and women. In 1970, the college started offering evening classes and in 1976 began awarding master's degrees. That same year, the St. Louis Football Cardinals of the NFL constructed another football field. In 1980, the college became a member of the NAIA for athletics. Lindenwood Colleges, Lindenwood College for Men and Lindenwood College for Women were merged into Lindenwood College in 1983. It was known as Lindenwood College until 1997, at which time the school changed its name to the current name of Lindenwood University.
Spellmann era revitalization By 1989, Lindenwood College was bankrupt, with student enrollment below 800. The college was in danger of closing when the administration hired Dennis Spellmann as the new president. Spellmann immediately began to implement changes, eliminating co-ed dorms, placing the emphasis on a "values-centered" approach in the classroom, and eliminating tenure.
The university began an extensive expansion of academic, residential, and athletic facilities starting in the mid-1990s which included construction of eight new residence halls, the Spellmann Campus Center, Lou Brock Sports Complex, and Harlen C. Hunter Stadium, as well as extensions to Ayres Hall and Harmon Hall. A change that caused controversy for the school was the "Pork for Tuition" program begun in 2002 and designed to help rural families pay for tuition by the university accepting livestock in return for discounts. The animals were then processed and used in the school cafeteria. At the time, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals staged a small protest in Saint Charles in response to the program. The Spellmann administration's focus on enrollment growth made Lindenwood the fastest-growing university in the Midwest during the time from the mid-1990s into the early 2000s. In 2006, Dennis Spellmann died by which time the university had seen its endowment grow to more than $50 million. James Evans became Lindenwood's 21st president on February 9, 2007.
Recent history
Expansion continued under Evans. The J. Scheidegger Center for the Arts, a performance and fine arts center, opened in late 2008 at a cost of $32 million. The university also constructed new dormitories and began building a new home for university presidents. Construction of Evans Commons began in 2009 and was completed during the summer of 2011. In 2011, Lindenwood University became the Lindenwood University System. Lindenwood University-Belleville transitioned from a satellite campus to a separately accredited college. The university was notified of the accrediting decision in November by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Under the new accreditation, Lindenwood University-Belleville will keep the same name and the same governing board as the St. Charles campus, now considered to be a sister school as part of the Lindenwood University System.Lindenwood University – Belleville By 2010, Lindenwood University's endowment had reached $148 million. The university announced a new athletic facility would be constructed behind the west end zone stands of Hunter Stadium. The three-story, building includes new football, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's lacrosse, and field hockey locker rooms. It also houses a new academic support center for student-athletes, coaches' offices, and meeting rooms overlooking the stadium. Lindenwood plans to construct a new administrative building, as well as additional dorms and campus facilities, and expand enrollment to over 20,000 students. The university and the DESCO Group announced in February 2011 that the St. Charles City Council had approved a resolution supporting the Lindenwood Town Center, a planned $30 million development that includes a shopping center, retail/business plaza, hotel, and apartment-style student housing complexes.
In the fall of 2012, the university announced it had purchased the property that was previously home to the Barat Academy. The facility opened in 2007 and was used by the private high school until it was evicted in 2011 and relocated to a smaller property. Lindenwood purchased the facility for $8.1 million with plans to enlarge classrooms and add chemistry labs. The building became the home of the Lindenwood Nursing and Allied Health Sciences program opening in fall 2013. It is a BSN completion program for students who hold associate degrees in nursing. The university hired Peggy Ellis as the dean of the program. Ellis had served since 2005 as the associate dean of graduate studies at the St. Louis University nursing school.
In May 2014, the Lindenwood University Board of Directors approved plans for a 100,000-square-foot Library and Academic Resources Center off First Capitol Drive, adjacent to the Welcome Center on the St. Charles campus. In 2015, Lindenwood announced the construction of the new facility, which will replace the 36,000-square-foot Margaret Leggat Butler Library, built in 1929. The new Academic Resources Center building will bring together a variety of student services under one roof, including the Writing Center, Student and Academic Support Services (SASS), Career Services, English as a Second Language, the Office of International Students and Scholars, and Lindenwood Online, all of which were involved in putting together the proposal for the new structure. The building will also include classroom space and an expanded coffee shop. Completion is expected in the latter part of 2016. The university formerly owned the Daniel Boone historic site in Defiance, Missouri southwest of the St. Charles campus. The historic site was donated to the people of St. Charles County in April 2016.
In 2023, the university acquired Dorsey College, a for-profit trade school with seven campuses in Michigan. The school also made large cutbacks removing nine staff positions and ten sports programs including men's tennis, lacrosse, and wrestling.
Campus
The main campus is located in historic St. Charles, Missouri, on high ground overlooking downtown St. Charles and the Missouri River. Its buildings range from historic 19th-century buildings to modern on-going construction projects. The campus stretches roughly one mile from southwest to northeast and is divided by a meandering stream. To the west, the campus is bordered by Duchesne Drive with Droste Road and West Clay Street forming the southern boundary. First Capitol Drive runs along the eastern edge of the campus and Gamble St. adjoins its north side. The eastern area of campus is the oldest section with the most recent expansion in the central and southern areas. The northwestern area has almost no structures. The university is a dry campus with alcoholic beverages prohibited on campus and in all university buildings.