Vincennes University

Vincennes University (VU) is a public university with its main campus in Vincennes, Indiana. Founded in 1801 as Jefferson Academy, VU is the oldest public institution of higher learning in the Northwest Territory and in Indiana.

VU was chartered in 1806 as the Indiana Territory's four-year university and remained the state of Indiana's sole publicly funded four-year university until the establishment of Indiana University in 1820. In 1889, VU was chartered by the State of Indiana as a two-year university.

From 1999 to 2005, Vincennes University was in a state-mandated partnership with what became the Ivy Tech Community College. In 2005, VU began offering baccalaureate degrees.

Vincennes University is one of the oldest universities north of the Ohio River and west of the Alleghenies. The 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.

VU is a member of the NJCAA. In honour of its local heritage, the VU team moniker is the Trailblazers. Trailblazers refer to the early years of Vincennes as a French fur-trading post an American 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 a minute man or woodsman-type frontier settler, inspired by such as George Rogers Clark who resided in Indiana after his military career.

The VU Trailblazers compete in baseball, bowling, golf, basketball, cross country, volleyball, and track and 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.