Wartburg College

Wartburg College
Motto	Be ORANGE
Established	1852
Type	Private
Affiliation	Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Endowment	$33 Million
President	Darrel D. Colson
Academic staff	150
Undergraduates	1,775
Location	Waverly, Iowa and Denver, Colorado
Campus	rural, 118 acres (48 ha)
Colors	Orange & Black
Nickname	Knights
Website	www.wartburg.edu

Wartburg College is a four-year liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located in Waverly, Iowa. Wartburg West is in Denver, Colorado.

As of 2012, the most popular programs of study at Wartburg were (in order): business, biology, elementary education, and speech communication/rhetoric.^[1] Wartburg's social work program is the oldest undergraduate program of its kind in Iowa. Wartburg is the only private college in Iowa offering a music therapy major. The college is highly competitive and has an 89 percent medical school placement rate and a 100 percent placement rate in other fields of medicine.

In 2007 U.S. News & World Report rated Wartburg College 6th for academic excellence among Midwestern comprehensive colleges which primarily award bachelor's degrees, and 2nd in terms of "bang for the buck" (i.e. best value when tuition costs, scholarship aid, and academics are compared).

History

Wartburg College was founded in 1852 in Saginaw, Michigan, by Georg M. Grossman, a native of Neuendettelsau, Bavaria. Grossmann was sent by Pastor Wilhelm Löhe to establish a pastor training school for German immigrants. The location of the college moved many times between Illinois and Iowa until permanently settling in Waverly in 1935. Also in 1935 St. Paul (Phalen) Luther College of Saint Paul, Minnesota merged into Wartburg College.

The college is named after Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, Germany, where Martin Luther was protected during the stormy days of the Reformation. Student and alumni groups often travel to the castle, and the Wartburg Choir has performed in the castle several times. Waverly and Eisenach are sister towns, and they often swap foreign exchange students. The college is proud of its German heritage, and celebrates an annual student-declared one-day holiday Outfly,^[2] a deliberately mistaken translation of the German noun Ausflug. Another German element of campus life is the granite inscription on the Chapel: "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott", which English-speaking Lutherans sing as A Mighty Fortress is Our God.

Campus buildings are named after places and people in Wartburg's history, including Grossmann, Luther, Saginaw, Galena, etc. The college is nearing the end of a long-term effort to unify the architectural appearance of the campus, with new music, library, stadium, cafeteria, and science buildings over the past 15 years. An array of skywalks and building corridors now allows students to walk from one end of campus to the other without having to go outside.

In 2008 the new Wartburg-Waverly Sports and Wellness Center, an indoor athletic complex co-sponsored by the city of Waverly, opened. The new center includes a performance arena, an indoor track, and natatorium. It replaces Knights Gymnasium, the longtime home of Wartburg Basketball and Volleyball, as well as the Physical Education Center which formerly adjoined the old gym.

The longstanding rivalry between Luther College in Decorah, Iowa and Wartburg College has produced colorful moments over several years. The origins of the rivalry are vague. Stories of pranks date back to the 1940s. The rivalry has, for the most part, been characterized by fun and good sportsmanship. The rivalry rose to new heights in October 1996, when two clever Wartburg cross-country runners rented a light plane, flew to Decorah, and dropped leaflets on the Luther campus. The incident was reported in every major newspaper in Iowa, got national mention on the Fox network and made Rolling Stone magazine's list of the most memorable college pranks of the 1996-1997 year. The creativity in the rivalry continued when student staff members of the college radio station, KWAR, secretly entered a float in the Luther College Homecoming Parade. The staff members decorated the float as an environmental club - the Organization of Nature Enthusiasts - from Luther College. In front of judges stand, the float quickly changed colors from blue and white to orange and black. The float continued all the way through town and onto Luther's campus, with numerous Wartburg students joining the procession from the crowd as the parade passed them.^[3]

Presidents

Location of the College

Wartburg College has moved many times throughout its history:^[4]

Athletics

Wartburg College teams participate as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III. The Knights are a member of the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC). Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, tennis, track & field and wrestling; while women's sports include basketball, cheerleading, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, track & field and volleyball.In the spring of 2012, Wartburg’s wrestling and Women’s track and field became the only school in NCAA history to win two national team championships on the same day.

Notable alumni

• Jack Salzwedel, Chairman and CEO of American Family Insurance
• Sarah Corpstein, class of 2005, Miss Iowa USA 2006.
• Mark Holtz, class of 1971, voice of the Texas Rangers, Texas Rangers Hall of Fame.
• Coleen Rowley, class of 1977, whistleblower FBI agent, researched suspected World Trade Center terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, joint 2002 TIME "Person of the Year", candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota's 2nd District in 2006.
• Simon Estes Professor of Music
• Don Denkinger, Major League Baseball umpire who achieved fame for his call at 1st base as an umpire in the 1985 World Series
• Tom Zirbel, professional bicycle racer and 2009 USA Cycling NRC points champion who signed to Union Cycliste Internationale professional team, Garmin-Transitions for the 2010 season.
• Paul Schell, former Mayor of Seattle, Washington
• Brian Trow, businessman and television personality
• George J. Woerth, Wisconsin State Assemblyman
• John West Hans, Creator/organizer of the Benton County Iowa "1983 Tractor Fest"

See also

• Wartburg College Concert Bands
• Wartburg Choir
• KWAR - Wartburg College's on campus radio station

References

External links

• Official website
• Official Sports Website
• Wartburg Trumpet (Student Newspaper)
• KWAR-FM Radio (Wartburg's on-campus radio station)

Coordinates: 42°43′45″N 92°28′55″W / 42.72911°N 92.48197°W / 42.72911; -92.48197