The University of Wisconsin–River Falls (UW–River Falls or UWRF) is a

public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant funding from a government. Whether a national university is considered public varies from o ...

River Falls, Wisconsin River Falls is a city in Pierce and St. Croix counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is located mostly within the town of River Falls, and adjacent to the town of Kinnickinnic in St. Croix County. River Falls is the most populous city ...

, United States. It is part of the

University of Wisconsin System The University of Wisconsin System is a state public university system in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is one of the largest public higher-education systems in the country, enrolling more than 160,000 students each year and employing approx ...

. The campus is situated on the Kinnickinnic River in the St. Croix River Valley. The university has 32 major buildings and two laboratory farms, with a total of of land. In 2013–2014, UWRF had an enrollment of 6,061 students in more than 40 undergraduate and graduate programs. UWRF is a member of the American Council of Education Internationalization Laboratory and provides several global studies and study abroad programs. The university also hosts the St. Croix Institute for Sustainable Community Development.

History

The University of Wisconsin–River Falls was founded in 1874 as "River Falls State Normal School", one of the state normal schools created to prepare students for teaching careers and to provide better education to the state's frontier regions.University of Wisconsin-River Falls
UWRF History
In 1927, the school was renamed "River Falls State Teachers College", as the state normal schools became "State Teachers Colleges" that incorporated a significant increase in general education offerings and four-year courses of study leading to a Bachelor of Education degree. After World War II, thousands of returning veterans in Wisconsin under the

G.I. Bill The G.I. Bill, formally the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I. (military), G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in ...

needed more college choices for their studies and educational advancement. Because of popular demand, the Regents of the State Teachers College system allowed the teacher training institutions to offer bachelor's degrees in liberal arts and fine arts. In 1951, when the state teachers colleges were organized as "Wisconsin State Colleges",University of Wisconsin System
What is the UW System
the school name was changed to "Wisconsin State College–River Falls", and the school offered a full four-year liberal-arts curriculum. In 1964, it was renamed "Wisconsin State University-River Falls" when state colleges were all granted university status. The school became a member of the

in 1971 when the former University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin State University system merged. It then became the "University of Wisconsin–River Falls".

Academics

UWRF offers over 70 areas of academic study, including majors, minors, and certificates. Some of these programs are accredited by specialized accreditors, including the

Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is an American professional and accreditation organization. It was founded as the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in 1916 to provide accreditation to busines ...

National Association of Schools of Music The National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) is an association of post-secondary music schools in the United States and the principal U.S. accreditor for higher education in music. It was founded on October 20, 1924, and is based in Resto ...

, the

Council on Social Work Education The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) is a nonprofit national association in the United States representing more than 2,500 individual members, as well as graduate and undergraduate programs of professional social work education. Founded in 1 ...

, the

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is a major international membership organization for academics in the field, offering regional and national conferences and refereed publications. It has numerous members ...

, the National Association of School Psychologists, the

, the Council for Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology (CAA), the

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Founded in 1920, The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is a professional organization for schoolteachers of mathematics in the United States. One of its goals is to improve the standards of mathematics in education. NCTM holds an ...

, the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

, and the American Society of Agricultural and

Biosystems Engineering Biological systems engineering or biosystems engineering is a broad-based engineering discipline with particular emphasis on non-medical biology. It can be thought of as a subset of the broader notion of biological engineering or bio-technology ...

. The average new freshman in fall 2019 had a 3.43 high school GPA and was ranked in the top 37% of their high school class.

Reputation and rankings

In 2018, University of Wisconsin–River Falls was ranked 93rd in Regional Universities Midwest, 23rd in Top Public Universities and 381st in Business Programs in United States of America. The University of Wisconsin–River Falls is one of four University of Wisconsin System institutions included in ''The Princeton Reviews 2014 list of the "Best in the Midwest." For 2014, '' U.S. News & World Report'' ranked UWRF in the top tier for Regional Universities in the Midwest United States.

Sustainability

UWRF has a

STARS A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of ...

rating of Gold. UWRF made Princeton Review's 2021 Guide to Green Colleges. UWRF received an A− grade on the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card. The university has created the St. Croix Institute for Sustainable Community Development, whose mission is "to support and facilitate the

University of Wisconsin-River Falls A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

in becoming one of the premier venues for deliberation and demonstration of sustainable community development principles."

Campus

Buildings

* South Hall, built in 1898, is the oldest building on campus and is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. * North Hall is the second oldest building on campus and is also on the NRHP. It was constructed in 1914. * Chalmer Davee Library, located between the Kleinpell Fine Arts building and South Hall and directly across from Hathorn Hall and the Wyman Education Building. It is the only library located on the campus. * Kleinpell Fine Arts, built in 1973 and was named after E.H. Kleinpell, a former university president.

Athletics

left, 170px, UWRF athletics mark UW-River Falls' athletic teams, known by their nickname, the Falcons, compete in 18 varsity sports in of the

Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference The Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) is an intercollegiate athletic conference that competes in the NCAA's Division III. In women's gymnastics, it competes alongside Division I and II members, as the NCAA sponsors a singl ...

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

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 Third ...

. Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country,

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

, soccer, and

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

. Women's sports are basketball, cross country,

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

, lacrosse, soccer, softball, and tennis. Men's and women's hockey teams compete in the

Northern Collegiate Hockey Association The Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) is a college athletic conference which operates in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in the midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division III as a hockey-o ...

. 220px, Hunt Arena, UWRF's ice hockey venue The university also offers club sports for students, including men's volleyball, badminton, paintball, iiu jitsu, and rock climbing. From 1991 to 2009, the

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) West division. Established in 1959 ...

used the university's athletic facilities during their annual summer training camp. The Chiefs moved their training camp to

Missouri Western State University Missouri Western State University (MWSU or MoWest) is a public university in St. Joseph, Missouri. As of 2023, it enrolled 3,815 students. History Missouri Western State University was founded in 1915 as St. Joseph Junior College and held cours ...

St. Joseph, Missouri St. Joseph is a city in and county seat of Buchanan County, Missouri, Buchanan County, Missouri, United States. A small portion of the city extends north into Andrew County, Missouri, Andrew County. Located on the Missouri River, it is the princ ...

in 2010. In 2007, the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

sports documentary, '' Hard Knocks'', followed the Chiefs throughout their summer training camp at UWRF. The series featured a number of university buildings, including the new student union, Rodli Commons, McMillan Hall, Ramer Field Complex, Hunt Ice Hockey Arena and Laboratory Farm #1.

Notable faculty

* Osborne Cowles, basketball coach * John Q. Emery, early university president * Michael Norman, author * Edward N. Peterson, historian *

Greta Gaard Greta Gaard is an ecofeminist writer, scholar, activist, and documentary filmmaker. Gaard's academic work in the realms of ecocriticism and ecocomposition is widely cited by scholars in the disciplines of composition and literary criticism. Her ...

, ecofeminist scholar

Notable alumni

References

External links

*
Athletics website
{{DEFAULTSORT:University of Wisconsin-River Falls

River Falls Universities and colleges established in 1874 Education in Pierce County, Wisconsin Buildings and structures in Pierce County, Wisconsin 1874 establishments in Wisconsin Universities and colleges accredited by the Higher Learning Commission