Vincennes University

Vincennes University
Established	1801 (details)
Type	Land grant public coeducational
President	Richard E. Helton
Students	4,522
Undergraduates	4,522
Location	Vincennes, IN, USA
Campus	4 Campuses 2 Small Cities 1 Small Town 1 Large City
Athletics	7 NJCAA teams, called Trailblazers
Website	www.vinu.edu

Vincennes University (VU) is a public university in Vincennes, Indiana, in the United States. Founded in 1801 as Jefferson Academy, VU is the oldest public institution of higher learning in Indiana. Since 1889, VU has been a two-year university, although baccalaureate degrees in seven select areas are available. Unlike most other two-year higher-education institutions, however, VU is a residential campus and has been since its inception over two hundred years ago.. VU was chartered in 1806 as the territory of Indiana's four-year university and remained the State of Indiana's sole publicly-funded four-year university until the establishment of Indiana University. From 1999 to 2005, Vincennes University was in a state-mandated partnership with what became the Ivy Tech Community College

On October 23, 2009, ground was broken on the new $10 Million Center for Advanced Manufacturing located near Fort Branch, Indiana. Construction is set to get underway on November 3, 2009. The facility's aim will be to significantly enhance the training facilities currently in existence at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana Plant in nearby Princeton and at the Gibson Generating Station, near Mount Carmel, Illinois, to meet the regional growth of demand with the expanding industry both in Gibson County and in the immediate Evansville area.

Academics

Vincennes University offers a diverse set of majors that are focused on careers in teaching and industry. Vincennes University has a 24% graduation rate.

Vincennes University is organized into six divisions:

• Business / Public Service Division
• Health Sciences / Human Performance Division
• Humanities
• Social Science / Performing Arts
• Department of Science / Mathematics
• Department of Technology

Vincennes University is also the only college in the nation that offers a Bowling Management and Technology program.

Buildings of the Vincennes University

Vincennes - Main Campus

(On Eastern Time)

• Shircliff Humanities Building
• Davis Hall (Public Service/Broadcasting)
• Governors Hall (Admissions)
• Welsh Administration Building
• Beckes Student Union
• Walthen Business Building
• PE Complex
• Summers Social Science Building
• McCormick Science Center
• Beless Gym
• Green Activities Center
• Dayson Alumni Center
• Young Hall - State-wide Services
• Health Occupations Building
• Tecumseh Dining Center
• Red Skelton Performing Arts Center / Red Skelton Museum
• Shake Learning Resource Center / Lewis Historical Library
• Automotive Technology Building
• Residence Halls
  • Clark Hall
  • Godare Hall
  • Harrison Hall
  • Morris Hall
  • Vanderburgh Hall
  • Vigo Hall
• Outlying Main Facilities
  • Indiana (On Eastern Time)
    • John Deere Agriculture Tech Building (Immediately north of Vincennes on Hwy 41)
  • Illinois (On Central Time)
    • O'neill Airfield; Westport, IL
    • Mid America Intn'l Airport; Lawrenceville, IL

• State historic buildings
  • Jefferson Academy building
  • Indiana Territory Capitol Building
  • Elihu Stout Print Shop

Jasper Campus

(On Eastern Time)

• Ruxer Student Center
• Halbig Technology Center
• Administrative Classroom Building
• New Classroom Building

Indianapolis Campus

(On Eastern Time)

• Facilities part of the Indianapolis International Airport
• American Sign Language program at the Indiana School for the Deaf

Fort Branch / Gibson County Campus

(On Central Time)

• Advanced Manufacturing Building (Groundbreaking on October 23, 2009)

History

History at a glance

Jefferson Academy	Established	1801
	Type	four-year private
Vincennes University	Renamed	1806
	Type	four-year territorial land-grant
	Rechartered	1889
	Type	two-year state-funded

Founding as Indiana Territory’s University

Vincennes University is the oldest university north of the Ohio River and west of the Alleghenies. This institution was founded in 1801 as Jefferson Academy and incorporated as Vincennes University on November 29, 1806. Founded by William Henry Harrison, VU is one of only two U.S. colleges founded by a President of the United States; the other is the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson. For over two-hundred years, VU was historically the only two-year university in Indiana, although baccalaureate degrees in seven select areas are now available and were available prior to 1889.

Vincennes University, also known colloquially as Territorial University during the early 19th century, was the first and only land-grant public university established by the Indiana Territory, prior to the formation of the states of Indiana and Illinois. The town of Vincennes was chosen as the location of both the capital of the Indiana Territory and of VU because Vincennes was centrally located at the approximate population-density center of the Indiana Territory. Upon the later formation of the Illinois Territory in 1809 as Indiana Territory prepared for statehood, Vincennes fell slightly east of the State of Indiana/Illinois Territory border. As territorial policy progressed through the formation of the Illinois Territory in 1809 (which drastically reduced the size of the Indiana Territory that VU served), the formation of the State of Indiana in 1816 (which considered itself an entirely new and separate legal entity from Indiana Territory that created VU, where the State of Indiana had little or no financial responsibility for VU), and the formation of the State of Illinois in 1818—, funding for Vincennes University became less and less certain with VU considered to be owned by the now-defunct Indiana Territory that was one legal step removed from the State of Indiana and two legal steps removed from the State of Illinois, immediately to VU’s west.

Because of Vincennes’ status as the capital of the Indiana Territory complete with a federally-recognized territorial land-grant university, the Indiana territorial capital of Vincennes figured prominently in the early Indiana-Illinois territorial and statehood policy. For example, the Tenth U.S. Congress established the Indiana-Illinois border, not with reference to a landmark along Lake Michigan near Chicago, but rather via direct reference to Vincennes, when that congress passed legislation establishing the separate Indiana Territory in preparation for Indiana’s proposed statehood on February 3, 1809 [1]. The Act established the boundaries as follows: “...all that part of the Indiana Territory which lies west of the Wabash river, and a direct line drawn from the said Wabash river and Post Vincennes, due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada...”

State of Indiana’s State University

Further complicating the question of funding for VU was the State of Indiana's desire to establish its own state-controlled public university in Bloomington, Indiana as a separate institution than Territorial University. Until the establishment of Indiana University as a state-controlled public university, Vincennes University, as a territory-controlled institution, was the sole public university within the whole territory of Indiana and then more narrowly within the state of Indiana. The State of Indiana and the State of Illinois partially abandoned their financial responsibility for Territorial University once they desired to establish their own separate state-controlled public universities without the legal complications of an institution whose legal control perhaps spanned the borders of at least two states and was established by a then-defunct governmental entity: the Territory of Indiana. These complications set the stage for Trustees for Vincennes University v Indiana. Conversely, these complications also set the stage for VU's rich two-century long history with some of the most architecturally-significant beautiful early 19th-century buildings to be found at any two-year institution in the USA.

In the mid-19th century, the Indiana state legislature tried to reclaim the original VU land grant, to be used for what would become Indiana University. The resulting lawsuit (Trustees for Vincennes University v Indiana, 1853) ended up being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, who decided in VU's favor, based on its earlier decision in a similar case regarding Dartmouth College. The legal dispute arose in part because a portion of VU's land-grant public university status derives from the fact that VU is the inheritor of the land-grant and facilities of Territorial University.[2]

To clarify the mission of VU vis a vis Indiana's other institutions of higher education at the time—Indiana University and Purdue University and the State Normal School—, the State of Indiana rechartered VU from a four-year university to a two-year university in 1889.

Tau Phi Delta and the Sigma Pi Fraternity

Main article: Sigma Pi

In 1897, a small literary society called Tau Phi Delta (ΤΦΔ) was started at VU, which soon after became the founding ("Alpha") chapter of Sigma Pi (ΣΠ) Fraternity, making that organization the first of its kind to be founded west of the Ohio Valley. A clock tower on the VU campus commemorates that event and the Fraternity, despite having grown into one of the largest collegiate fraternities and having relocated its headquarters to Tennessee, recognizes VU as its birthplace. The VU chapter is still active today and counts among its members some of the University's most famous and successful alumni, including three VU Presidents.

Relationship with Ivy Tech Community College

In 1999, Indiana Governor Frank O'Bannon and Stan Jones, commissioner for higher education, convinced the Indiana state legislature to mandate a "coordinated partnership" between Vincennes University and what was then called Ivy Tech State College (1). Writing for a national publication, reporter William Trombley characterized the "shotgun marriage" as something that was spoken of cautiously by officials at both institutions: "It was not our initiative," Vincennes President Phillip M. Summers said in an interview. "We were asked if we would participate and we agreed" (3). Thomas Cooke, dean of instruction at the Ivy Tech Indianapolis campus, said "We have everything except the liberal arts degree . . . And that could be easily accommodated within our present structure" (4). [3] This tenuous arrangement dissolved during the 2005 rechartering of Ivy Tech State College as a statewide system of comprehensive community colleges named Ivy Tech Community College.

Athletics

VU is a member of the NJCAA. In honor of its heritage, the VU team moniker is the Trailblazers. Trailblazers refers to the early years of Vincennes as outpost in the frontier of the Northwest Territory and its later period as capital of the Indiana Territory. When the Trailblazers moniker needs to be personified by a mascot, VU depicts a Trailblazer as minute man or woodsman-type frontier settler, inspired by such as those as George Rogers Clark who resided in Indiana after his military career.

VU Trailblazers compete in baseball, bowling, golf, basketball, cross country, tennis, volleyball, swimming & diving, and track & field. Its bowling team is particularly well known as it has won 21 NJCAA national championships. The men's bowling team won the 1983 USBC collegiate national championship.

Broadcasting Facilities - Public Service Division

Low-Power Radio Stations

88.5 WROK K-ROCK

87.9 WROL Mix 87.9

Main High-Power Radio Station

91.1 WVUB "The Blazer"

Television Stations

PBS 22/52 WVUT

MKZ 234/11

Notable alumni

• Bob McAdoo - former NBA player, NBA Hall of Fame
• Carl Landry - NBA, currently with the New Orleans Hornets
• Curtis Shake - jurist and politician -Sigma Pi
• David Goodnow - CNN news anchor, retired
• Eric Williams (basketball) - NBA, Charlotte Bobcats
• John Mellencamp - Musician 1973
• Mario Joyner - stand-up comedian & actor
• Rickey Green - NJCAA basketball hall of fame
• Shawn Marion - NBA, Dallas Mavericks
• William Gainey - first Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (SEAC)

References

Trombley, William. "Indiana's New Community College Plan: A state-mandated partnership between Ivy Tech and Vincennes University is seen by some as a shotgun marriage." National CrossTalk: A Publication for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Vol. 8. No. 1 (Winter 2000). 1-9.

External links

• Official website
• Official athletics website
• Campus map