A member of the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics), Lindenwood competes within the Heart of America Conference and has teams in other organizations. 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.
With a current enrollment of 12,000 students, Lindenwood confers 13% of all the college degrees in the state of Missouri and is the fastest-growing college or university in Missouri. Programs of note are Education (one of the largest education programs in the state), Mass Communications, Fine and Performing Arts, and Business. With the main St. Charles campus currently at 450 acres and growing, 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.
History
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 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.