school for young women called "Livingston Female Academy".
The university serves students in several academic colleges and divisions on a 600-acre (2.4 km2) campus in west-central Alabama. UWA offers various degree programs including associate, bachelor's, master's, educational specialist, and educational doctorate degrees.
Its athletics teams, known as the West Alabama Tigers, are members of the Gulf South Conference and compete in NCAA Division II in all sports except the men's and women's rodeo teams who compete in the Ozark Region of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association.
== History ==
=== Early history ===
The University of West Alabama began as Livingston Female Academy in 1835. As a church-related female academy, it admitted its first students in 1839. The school was established by Scots-Irish Presbyterians, who controlled the majority of seats on the first board of trustees selected in 1836. The original purpose of the school was to educate future teachers, while also offering course work …
