Iowa Wesleyan College

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Iowa Wesleyan College is a private, fully-accredited four-year college of the United Methodist Church located Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. Full-time student enrollment at Iowa Wesleyan is approximately 800.

On February 5, 1842, the Iowa Territorial Legislature passed a bill to incorporate a "literary institute" or institution of higher education, in Mount Pleasant. The bill became law on February 17. On March 11, 1843, nine years after the settlement was founded, four Mount Pleasant citizens donated twenty acres (81,000 m²) in four adjoining plots to enable the trustees "to erect a suitable building on some part of the donation, which should be used and forever appropriated as an institution of higher learning." This building, now called Pioneer Hall, is still in use today -- the oldest college building at the oldest coeducational institution of higher learning located west of the Mississippi River.

Among the college's most famous alumni are Belle Babb "Arabella" Mansfield, the first female lawyer in the United States; James Van Allen, world-renowned astrophysicist and discoverer of the Van Allen radiation belt circling the earth, Peggy Whitson, NASA Astronaut and William Andrews Clark, early 20th century business magnate.

Dr. Jay K. Simmons is the school's 28th president.

[edit] Athletics

Iowa Wesleyan College offers six sports for men, and six sports for women. For men, basketball, soccer, track, baseball, football, and golf are offered. The sports for the women are identical, except for volleyball, which is offered instead of football. IWC will reinstate Cross Country for men and women beginning in August of 2009.

In 2006, for the first time in school history, both the men's and women's basketball teams qualified for the national tournament.

Iowa Wesleyan is a NAIA Division II school, and a member of the Midwest Collegiate Conference. Their mascot is the Tiger.