Vincennes University (Vincennes, Indiana)

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1002 North 1st Street
Vincennes, IN 47591
(800) 742-9198
www.vinu.edu/

Vincennes University (VU) is a public university in Vincennes, Indiana. Founded in 1801 as Jefferson Academy, VU is the oldest public institution of higher learning in Indiana. Since 1889, VU has been a two-year university, although baccalaureate degrees in seven select areas are now available. Unlike most other two-year higher-education institutions, however, VU is a residential campus and has been since its inception over two hundred years ago. VU was chartered in 1806 as the Territory of Indiana's four-year university and remained the State of Indiana's sole publicly-funded four-year university until the establishment of Indiana University. Until 2005, Vincennes University served as the state-mandated coordinator of the Ivy Tech Community College system.

Founding as Indiana territory’s university

Vincennes University is the oldest university north of the Ohio River and west of the Alleghenies. This 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.

Vincennes University, also known colloquially as Territorial University during the early 19th century, was the first and only land-grant public university established by the Indiana Territory, prior to the formation of the states of Indiana and Illinois. The town of Vincennes was chosen as the location of both the capital of the Indiana Territory and of VU because Vincennes was centrally located at the approximate population-density center of the Indiana Territory. Upon the later formation of the Illinois Territory in 1809 as Indiana Territory prepared for statehood, Vincennes fell slightly east of the State of Indiana/Illinois Territory border. As territorial policy progressed through the formation of the Illinois Territory in 1809 (which drastically reduced the size of the Indiana Territory that VU served), the formation of the State of Indiana in 1816 (which considered itself an entirely new and separate legal entity from Indiana Territory that created VU, where the State of Indiana had little or no financial responsibility for VU), and the formation of the State of Illinois in 1818—, funding for Vincennes University became less and less certain with VU considered to be owned by the now-defunct Indiana Territory that was one legal step removed from the State of Indiana and two legal steps removed from the State of Illinois, immediately to VU’s west.

Because of Vincennes’ status as the capital of the Indiana Territory complete with a federally-recognized territorial land-grant university, the Indiana territorial capital of Vincennes figured prominently in the early Indiana-Illinois territorial and statehood policy. For example, the Tenth U.S. Congress established the Indiana-Illinois border, not with reference to a landmark along Lake Michigan near Chicago, but rather via direct reference to Vincennes, when that congress passed legislation establishing the separate Indiana Territory in preparation for Indiana’s proposed statehood on February 3, 1809[2]. The Act established the boundaries as follows: “...all that part of the Indiana Territory which lies west of the Wabash river, and a direct line drawn from the said Wabash river and Post Vincennes, due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada...”