Wartburg College is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

liberal arts college in

Waverly, Iowa Waverly is a city in Bremer County, Iowa, United States. The population was 10,394 at the time of the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Bremer County and is part of the Waterloo– Cedar Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. The sister ci ...

. It has an additional campus, Wartburg West, in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

History

Wartburg College was founded in 1852 in

Saginaw, Michigan Saginaw () is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Saginaw County. The city of Saginaw and Saginaw County are both in the area known as Mid-Michigan. Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township and considered part of Greater ...

, by Georg M. Grossmann, a native of

Neuendettelsau Neuendettelsau is a local authority in Middle Franconia, Germany. Neuendettelsau is situated 20 miles southwest of Nuremberg and 12 miles east of Ansbach. Since 1947 it has a Lutheran seminary ( ''Augustana Hochschule''). Diakonie Neuendettelsau ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

. Grossmann was sent by Pastor

Wilhelm Löhe Wilhelm may refer to: People and fictional characters * William Charles John Pitcher, costume designer known professionally as "Wilhelm" * Wilhelm (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname Other uses * Moun ...

to establish a pastor training school for German

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...

. The location of the college moved many times between

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

and Iowa until permanently settling in Waverly in 1935. Also in 1935, St. Paul Luther College of the Phalen Park neighborhood of

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center ...

merged into Wartburg College. The college is named after

Wartburg The Wartburg () is a castle originally built in the Middle Ages. It is situated on a precipice of to the southwest of and overlooking the town of Eisenach, in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It was the home of St. Elisabeth of Hungary, the ...

Castle in

Eisenach Eisenach () is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, located west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia and bordering northeastern Hessian regions, situat ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, where

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...

was protected during the stormy days of the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

. Student and alumni groups often travel to the castle, and the Wartburg Choir has performed in the castle several times. Waverly and

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, a deliberately mistaken translation of the German noun Ausflug. This tradition likely started in the fall of 1982, as faculty minutes show an unplanned outing on October 6. Another German element of campus life is the granite inscription on the Chapel: "

Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" (originally written in the German language with the title ) is one of the best known hymns by the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther, a prolific hymnwriter. Luther wrote the words and composed the hymn tune between ...

", 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 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 replaced ''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 Decorah is a city in and the county seat of Winneshiek County, Iowa, United States. The population was 7,587 at the time of the 2020 census. Decorah is located at the intersection of State Highway 9 and U.S. Route 52, and is the largest commun ...

, 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 Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 terahe ...

, 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 Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

network and made ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' magazine's list of the most memorable college pranks of 1996-1997. The creativity in the rivalry continued when student staff members of the college radio station,

KWAR KWAR (89.9 FM, "Your Sound") is a radio station broadcasting a Top 40 (CHR) music format. Licensed to Waverly, Iowa, United States, the station is currently owned by Wartburg College. History The Federal Communications Commission issued a const ...

, 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.

Presidents

Jack Ohle

Jack Ohle held the presidency of Wartburg College from 1998 to 2008, during which time a number of expensive construction projects were undertaken on campus, including the Wartburg-Waverly Sports Center. As a result of the spending, however, ''

The Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to re ...

'' reports that Ohle left Wartburg in a state of financial unrest. This academic newspaper noted that the financing "has raised red flags with its accreditor, alarmed some faculty members, and left Wartburg with a

credit rating A credit rating is an evaluation of the credit risk of a prospective debtor (an individual, a business, company or a government), predicting their ability to pay back the debt, and an implicit forecast of the likelihood of the debtor defaulting. ...

just one notch above 'junk.'"

Darrel Colson

In 2015,

Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings Inc. is an American credit rating agency and is one of the " Big Three credit rating agencies", the other two being Moody's and Standard & Poor's. It is one of the three nationally recognized statistical rating organizations ( NRSRO ...

"assigned a 'BB' rating to revenue refunding bonds issued by the Iowa Higher Education Loan Authority on behalf of Wartburg College", downgrading the college's financial rating. According to an article published in the College's campus newspaper, ''The Trumpet'', Wartburg's credit rating is considered "

speculative Speculative may refer to: In arts and entertainment *Speculative art (disambiguation) *Speculative fiction, which includes elements created out of human imagination, such as the science fiction and fantasy genres **Speculative Fiction Group, a Per ...

". According to Richard Seggerman, Wartburg's vice president for finance and administration, " e debt comes from capital projects" including "the buildings and the equipment related to them ... the science center, the student center and The averly-Wartburg Sports Center, all projects originating during Jack Ohle's tenure as President of the College. In October 2015, Wartburg made headlines for the dean of faculty's recommendation to reduce the college's faculty because of declining enrollment and the lack of "institutional need". In an article appearing in '' Inside Higher Ed'', it was reported that declining enrollment and a large budget gap contributed to the recommendation. According to the article, " e professors hose positions were recommended to be cutwere notified their jobs were at risk by being copied on a memo to their respective chairs." The fact that the recommendations, if implemented, would leave the college without full-time professors in philosophy, ethics, American literature, theater, and French, led students to protest the cuts and created a concern about the perception that it may no longer be a liberal arts college after such measures.

List of presidents

* Georg M. Grossmann, 1852–1868 * John Klindworth, 1868–1875 * Georg Grossmann, 1878-1894 * Friedrich Lutz, 1894–1905 * Gerhard Bergstraesser, 1905–1909 * Friedrich Richter, 1894–1899 (Clinton IA) * Otto Kraushaar, 1899–1907 (Clinton IA) * John Fritschel, 1907–1919 (Clinton IA) * Otto Proehl, 1919–1935 (Clinton IA) * August Engelbrecht, 1909–1933 * Edward J. Braulick, 1935–1945 * Conrad Becker, 1945–1964 * John Bachman, 1964–1974 * William Jellema, 1974–1980 * Robert L. Vogel, 1980–1998 * Jack R. Ohle, 1998–2008 * William Hamm, 2008–2009 (interim) * Darrel Colson, 2009–2022 * Rebecca Neiduski, 2022–Present

Location

Wartburg College has moved many times throughout its history: *

(1852–1853) *

Dubuque, Iowa Dubuque (, ) is the county seat of Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, located along the Mississippi River. At the time of the 2020 census, the population of Dubuque was 59,667. The city lies at the junction of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, a r ...

(1853–1857) * St. Sebald, Iowa (1857–1868) *

Galena, Illinois Galena is the largest city in and the county seat of Jo Daviess County, Illinois, with a population of 3,308 at the 2020 census. A section of the city is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Galena Historic District. The c ...

(1868–1875) *

Mendota, Illinois Mendota is a city in LaSalle County, Illinois, United States, in the state's north-central region. The population was 7,061 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Ottawa, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area. Mendota is located approximately 85 miles ...

(1875–1885) *

Clinton, Iowa Clinton is a city in and the county seat of Clinton County, Iowa, United States. The population was 24,469 as of 2020. Clinton, along with DeWitt (also located in Clinton County), was named in honor of the sixth governor of New York, DeWitt C ...

(1894–1935) *

(1879–1933, 1935–present)

Athletics

Wartburg College teams participate as a member of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Thir ...

. The Knights are a member of the

American Rivers Conference The American Rivers Conference (A-R-C) is an NCAA Division III athletic conference. From 1927 until August 9, 2018, it was known officially as the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) and commonly as the Iowa Conference. History The A ...

(ARC). Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, Wartburg College Knights football, golf, soccer, tennis, track & field and wrestling; while women's sports include basketball, cheerleading, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, track & field, volleyball, wrestling, and lacrosse. The women's lacrosse team competes in the

Midwest Women's Lacrosse Conference The Midwest Women's Lacrosse Conference (MWLC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III women's lacrosse-only college athletic conference composed of schools located in the Midwestern United States. All schools are membe ...

(MWLC). In the spring of 2012, Wartburg's wrestling and women's track and field teams led Wartburg to become the only school in

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

history to win two national team championships on the same day. Wartburg has had an individual or team national champion for 28 straight years including Wartburg wrestling winning the 2022 NCAA DIII Wrestling Tournament. The men's wrestling team has a NCAA DIII leading 15 NCAA national titles. Wartburg's softball team appeared in two

Women's College World Series The Women's College World Series (WCWS) is the final portion of the NCAA Division I softball tournament for college softball in the United States. Eight teams participate in the WCWS, which begins with a double-elimination tournament. In other wo ...

in 1971 and 2003, while the baseball team has also played in two

College World Series The College World Series (CWS), officially the NCAA Men's College World Series (MCWS), is an annual baseball tournament held in June in Omaha, Nebraska. The MCWS is the culmination of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Divisi ...

, coming in 2000 and 2005.

Notable alumni

Don Denkinger Donald Anton Denkinger (; born August 28, 1936) is a former Major League Baseball umpire who worked in the American League from 1969 to 1998. Denkinger wore uniform number 11, when the AL adopted uniform numbers in 1980. He is best remembered ...

, Major League Baseball umpire who achieved notoriety for his call at 1st base as an umpire in the 1985 World Series * Romaine H Foege, member, Iowa House of Representatives, 1996–2008, director, Iowa Department on Aging, 2010-2011. CEO, Eastern Iowa Health Center, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 2014-2015 *

Mark Holtz Mark Holtz (October 1, 1945 – September 7, 1997) was an American sportscaster, best known for his broadcasts of Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers. Career In 1981, he served as broadcaster on Rangers' cable games, then from 1982-1994 as ...

, radio announcer for professional baseball team the Texas Rangers *

Dan Ige Daniel Alexander Ige (born August 6, 1991) is an American mixed martial artist currently competing in UFC's Featherweight division. A professional since 2014, he has also competed for the Legacy Fighting Championship, Pancrase, the RFA, and Tit ...

, professional

mixed martial artist Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, incorpo ...

Sarah Lacina Sarah Lacina (born July 9, 1984) is an American police officer best known for competing on the American reality show '' Survivor''. She came in 11th place and was the first jury member in the show's 28th season, '' Survivor: Cagayan'', in 2014. ...

, winner of season 34 of Survivor: Game Changers. Appeared on three seasons of survivor and The Challenge: USA *

Coleen Rowley Coleen Rowley (born December 20, 1954) is an American former FBI special agent and whistleblower, and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 2nd congressional district, one of eight congressional dist ...

whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

agent, researched suspected

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

; jointly held the ''Time'' magazine Person of the Year award in 2002 * Jack Salzwedel, chairman and CEO of

American Family Insurance American Family Insurance, also abbreviated as AmFam, is an American private mutual company that focuses on property, casualty, and auto insurance, and also offers commercial insurance, life, health, and homeowners coverage as well as investm ...

Paul Schell Paul E. S. Schell (born Paul Ervin Schlachtenhaufen; October 8, 1937 – July 27, 2014) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 50th mayor of Seattle, Washington from 1998 to 2002. Early life and education The oldest of six chi ...

, former mayor of

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

* Brian Trow, businessman and television personality * George J. Woerth, Wisconsin state assemblyman *

Tom Zirbel Tom Zirbel (born October 30, 1978) is an American former road bicycle racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2006 and 2016 for the , and teams. Career Born in Clear Lake, Iowa, Zirbel rode for from 2006 to 2009. He came fourth in th ...

, professional bicycle racer and 2009

USA Cycling USA Cycling or USAC, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is the national governing body for bicycle racing in the United States. It covers the disciplines of road, track, mountain bike, cyclo-cross, and BMX across all ages and ability level ...

NRC points champion who signed to

Union Cycliste Internationale The ''Union Cycliste Internationale'' (UCI; ; en, International Cycling Union) is the world governing body for sports cycling and oversees international competitive cycling events. The UCI is based in Aigle, Switzerland. The UCI issues raci ...

professional team, Garmin-Transitions for the 2010 season

References

External links

*
Official athletic website
{{authority control Waverly, Iowa Liberal arts colleges in Iowa Educational institutions established in 1852 Education in Bremer County, Iowa Buildings and structures in Bremer County, Iowa 1852 establishments in Iowa Private universities and colleges in Iowa