University of Wisconsin–Platteville

University of Wisconsin–Platteville

Motto	Every Day is a Great Day to be a Pioneer!
Type	State university
Established	1866
Endowment	$23,442,846
Chancellor	Dennis Shields
Administrative staff	336
Students	8,712
Undergraduates	7,862
Location	Platteville, Wisconsin, U.S. 42°43′59″N 90°29′17″W / 42.733°N 90.488°W / 42.733; -90.488Coordinates: 42°43′59″N 90°29′17″W / 42.733°N 90.488°W / 42.733; -90.488
Campus	820 acres (332 ha)
Nickname	Pioneers
Colors	Orange & Blue
Website	www.uwplatt.edu

University of Wisconsin–Platteville (also known as UW–Platteville) is a public university located in Platteville, Wisconsin, United States. Part of the University of Wisconsin System, it offers both bachelor's and master's degrees. The university has three colleges that serve over 8,000 students on-campus and an additional 3,000 students through its five distance education programs.

The university grew from the 1959 merger of two schools:Wisconsin State College, Platteville and Wisconsin Institute of Technology. WSC-Platteville was founded in 1866 as Platteville Normal School, the first teacher preparation school in Wisconsin. It was renamed Platteville State Teachers College in 1926 and Wisconsin State College, Platteville in 1951. The Wisconsin Institute of Technology, founded in 1907 as the Wisconsin Mining Trade School, was founded to train technicians for the numerous mining operations around Platteville. It evolved into the first three-year program for mining engineers in the United States. It changed its name to the Wisconsin Institute of Technology in 1939. The schools combined became the Wisconsin State College and Institute of Technology. In 1966, along with Wisconsin's other state colleges, it was granted university status as Wisconsin State University-Platteville. It took its current name after the Wisconsin State University system merged with the University of Wisconsin in 1971.

Starting in the late 1960s, the University of Wisconsin–Platteville expanded its academic program and established new colleges, the largest being a business college. The mining college was transformed into an engineering college encompassing mining, electrical, mechanical, and eventually electronic engineering. In the late 1980s, the mining engineering degree was phased out because of falling enrollment. By that time it had been overshadowed by the other engineering degrees.

From 1984 to 2000, the Chicago Bears of the National Football League held pre-season training camp at UW–Platteville. They were considered a member of the "Cheese League" that in 1999 consisted of the Green Bay Packers, New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs, with each team practicing at a different university in Wisconsin. In 2001, the Illinois General Assembly asked the Bears to move to an Illinois practice facility in order to raise funds for remodeling Soldier Field. Before the Bears left, they donated $250,000 to UW–Platteville for a new computer lab, which was named "The Bears Den."