River.
The university offers more than 80 programs on its main campus as well as collegiate programs on satellite campuses at Winona State University-Rochester. Its average annual enrollment is approximately 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Its sports teams compete as the Winona State Warriors in the NCAA Division II athletics in 14 sports, primarily in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference.
== History ==
Winona State University was founded as the First State Normal School, an institution specifically for educating and producing new elementary school teachers. In the 1850s, Minnesota was on the American frontier and lacked trained teachers. Winona settler John Ford lobbied the Minnesota Legislature to establish normal schools and rallied more than $5,000 in local donations to establish the state's first such institution. It was also the first tax-funded school west of the Mississippi River.
Classes at Winona Normal School began in September 1860, but the next year most of the male students …
