There won’t be a shortage of things to do this school year at Lindsey Wilson University. From athletics to the fine and performing arts, as well as a few construction projects, Lindsey Wilson’s A.P. White Campus will be a bustling hub of activity throughout 2026-27.
Starting with the sheer numbers of students enrolled this school year. Lindsey Wilson has more than 500 new students, which includes freshmen and transfer students from other colleges and universities. That translates into more than 1,000 students living in university residence halls.
A lot of students means a lot of events. And Lindsey Wilson has a lot of events scheduled throughout the year -- academic events, athletic events and cocurricular events.
With 29 intercollegiate varsity athletic teams (who have won more than 120 team and individual national championships), an athletics event will take place on most nights on campus.
Several Blue Raider programs hope to add a team or individual national title to the overall count this school year, and all of them look to compete in the Mid-South Conference, which is considered the top conference in the NAIA. Lindsey Wilson’s women’s flag football team, which is in its second year, will get to compete for its first Mid-South Conference title in 2026-27, as the Mid-South Conference Council of Presidents unanimously voted this summer to make women’s flag football its 28th championship sport.
On the academic side, honors week will be held in April; the R.V. Bennett Honors Program will hold its fall and spring colloquia in the fall and spring; the Department of Gender & Cultural Studies will sponsor the annual Dr. Kara Mollis Conference on Women’s and Gender Studies in April; and the university’s Center for Civic Engagement and Student Leadership will host the L3 Leadership Symposium toward the end of the school year.
Also in the spring, look for the 28th edition of the literary journal “Orpheus” and the 13th issue of “Alpha Kappa Phi Review.”
New academic programs
The 2026-27 school year will also mark the first year of three new Lindsey Wilson academic programs -- the 4+1 business administration program, agribusiness and sport performance.
Lindsey Wilson’s four-plus-one business program will allow students to earn a bachelor of arts degree in business administration and a master’s degree in business administration in only five years, which will save students time and money.
Students who major in business administration apply to the accelerated pathway during the second semester of their junior year and begin taking MBA-level coursework in their senior year. The graduate hours count toward both the bachelor’s degree and the MBA, allowing students to make progress toward both degrees. The first cohort of 4+1 MBA students begin work this fall.
LWU’s agribusiness major has been a longtime goal of the university’s faculty. It was also created because of regional workforce needs and a growing interest from area high school students.
As LWU School of Business and Communication Dean Benson Sexton ’04 said, the goal was “to create a program where students don’t have to leave rural America to get a world-class, career-ready agribusiness education connected to the land and the communities they call home.”
The 120-hour bachelor of arts degree includes 12 core courses (36 hours) and four electives (12 hours) that draw on the disciplines of agriculture, biology, business management, communication, economics, English, and sustainability and environmental studies.
Sport performance is also a 120-hour bachelor of arts program. It is an emerging academic discipline that transforms the athletic experience into a rigorous form of academic study by giving student-athletes a way to turn competition into deeper learning.
Sport performance recognizes that sport is more than competition. Grounded in theories of integrative learning, embodied pedagogy, ethical reasoning, intercultural competence and teamwork, sport performance provides students an academic framework in which they critically reflect on their practice, training, rehabilitation and competition experiences.
Sport performance is especially focused on preparing students for careers in the multi-trillion-dollar global sports industry, while also preparing graduates for careers beyond sport.
To accommodate Lindsey Wilson’s growing enrollment and academic programs, the university hired nine new faculty for the 2026-27 school year, expanding its total number of full-time faculty to 128.
New buildings
Physically, the A.P. White Camps will look different after the 2026-27 school year. Two new buildings are being added to the Fairgrounds Street area of campus -- the Jessica Smith Golf Center -- Donated by Earl & Marlene Smith and the Henry Baughman Indoor Tennis Center.
Construction is already underway on the 4,200-square-foot Jessica Smith Golf Center; it will open later in the fall. Construction on the single-story, 22,000-square-foot Baughman Indoor Tennis Center will start later in the school year. It will include three indoor tennis courts, locker rooms for the men’s and women’s tennis teams, coaches’ offices, and a lobby/meeting area for the teams.
Fine and performing arts
The university’s fine and performing arts groups and departments also anticipate a busy 2026-27. The Lucretia C. Begley Art Gallery will offer six shows in 2026-27, starting with a look at one of Kentucky’s unique artists -- the late Henry Faulkner. Presented by First Southern National Bank of Stanford, Kentucky, “Henry Faulkner: A Life in Color” is on display through Oct. 9.
The Lindsey Wilson Department of Theatre has one of its more exciting seasons planned for 2026-27; its season includes two iconic stories of the American stage.
In addition to David Auburn’s award-winning drama “Proof,” which is seen by many critics as one of the best plays of the century, the five-show season will include the beloved rock musical “Rent” by Jonathan Larson. The season will also feature the musical adaptation of the classic children’s story “The Secret Garden” with lyrics by Louisville, Kentucky, native Marsha Norman; John Cariani’s new play, “Darker the Night, Brighter the Stars;” and the musical comedy “Sanders Family Christmas,” a sequel to the bluegrass gospel musical “Smoke on the Mountain.”
The Lindsey Wilson Singers and Blue Raider Band will also have several performances throughout the school year.
Under the direction of second-year Director of Bands Robert Palmer, “The Light We Follow” will be the title of the Blue Raider Band’s halftime show at this year’s football games, a tribute to songs that center around the sun or inspired by the sun. The school year will also feature performances by the concert band as well as its jazz group.
The Lindsey Wilson Singers, under the direction of second-year Director of Choral Activities Jennifer Bersaglia, will hold their usual concerts throughout the school year. Their spring break tour in March 2027 will include stops in Miami, Key West and Everglades National Park. The theme for their 2026-27 program will be celestial wonders. Or, as Bersaglia said when she announced the theme, it will be a musical lineup informed by the stars, the heavens, the aurora borealis and “just the wonder these things inspire in us.”
By Duane Bonifer
LWU Communications
