Lawrence Technological University


Lawrence Technological University , frequently referred to as Lawrence Tech, is a private university in Southfield, Michigan. Lawrence Tech was founded in 1932 in Highland Park, Michigan, as the Lawrence Institute of Technology by Russell E. Lawrence. The university moved to Southfield in 1955 and has since expanded to. The campus also includes the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Affleck House in Bloomfield Hills and the Detroit Center for Design + Technology in Midtown Detroit.
The school offers undergraduate, masters, and doctoral programs in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics fields. The university's four colleges are Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Business and Information Technology, and Engineering. LTU's athletic teams are known as the Blue Devils. They compete in Division II of the NAIA and joined the Wolverine Hoosier Athletic Conference in 2012.

Academics

Lawrence Tech offers over 100 programs in four colleges, with a total enrollment of nearly 4,500 students, and employs over 400 full- and part-time faculty.
In November 2016, LTU and St. John Providence Hospitals announced they had received state approval to establish a nursing education program. The program, which opened in August 2017, has classroom instruction at LTU's Southfield campus, with clinical and laboratory instruction at six St. John Providence hospital locations around metro Detroit. The new program will fall under Lawrence Tech's College of Arts and Sciences as a major in the LTU Department of Natural Sciences, granting a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. LTU will admit up to 32 students a year in the program. Lawrence Tech has hired Therese Jamison, DNP, ACNP-BC, as professor of nursing and director of the program. Jamison earned her Doctorate of Nursing Practice from Vanderbilt University. Earlier, she earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a master's degree in Nursing from Wayne State University, as well as a post-master's certificate as an acute care nurse practitioner from the University of Michigan. A veteran nursing specialist, Jamison continues to work one day a week as a nurse practitioner in cardiovascular services at St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital, Warren Campus.

Athletics

Lawrence Tech teams are known as the Blue Devils. The university is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, primarily competing in the Wolverine–Hoosier Athletic Conference while the university's second men's ice hockey team is a member of the American Collegiate Hockey Association at the Division III level as a member of the Michigan Collegiate Hockey Conference. Men's sports include basketball, bowling, cross country, ice hockey, lacrosse and soccer; while women's sports include basketball, bowling, cross country, lacrosse, soccer and volleyball.
Lawrence Tech fielded athletic teams throughout its history from 1930 to 1962. The 1950–51 men's basketball team played the 1951 National Invitation Tournament, held at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Lawrence Tech was defeated by Dayton, 71-77 in the opening round of the tournament. Blaine Denning, an alumnus from the 1951 team, went on to play professional basketball with the Baltimore Bullets of the NBA.
Lawrence Tech re-instated athletic programs in 2011 and joined the NAIA. Men's soccer and bowling, along with women's volleyball, joined the already established men's ice hockey team for the university's athletic offerings during the 2011–12 academic year. During its fifth season in the NAIA, the university fielded teams in men's baseball, basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, hockey, volleyball, lacrosse, soccer and tennis, and women's basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, tennis and volleyball.
Thanks to a $1 million gift from an anonymous donor, during the summer of 2016 Lawrence Tech constructed an AstroTurf surface athletic field at the Point, the part of campus at the intersection of Northwestern Highway and 10 Mile Road. LTU's men's and women's soccer and lacrosse teams began playing on this field in August 2016. The project also includes a 40-car parking lot. In the summer of 2018, lighting for night games, a new scoreboard with a video replay display, temporary seating for 2,000 fans and a pressbox were constructed in preparation for the inaugural 2018 season of LTU's football team. The first football game, held Sept. 1, 2018, drew an overflow crowd of more than 3,800 fans. Future plans for the site include permanent stadium seating for 4,000 fans, a two-story team building with locker rooms, a weight room, and offices for trainers and coaches, and a concession and restroom building.
In January 2017, Lawrence Tech announced that it would resume intercollegiate football competition, after a hiatus of more than 70 years dating back to just after World War II. The university has admitted two recruiting classes of about 90 student-athletes for a team that competed as an independent squad in the fall of 2018, and which will begin playing a full varsity schedule in the Mid-States Football Association of the NAIA in the fall of 2019. LTU hired Jeff Duvendeck, former head coach at Culver-Stockton College and a former assistant at Michigan State University, Northern Michigan University, Michigan Technological University, Grand Valley State University, and Tiffin University, as its head coach. The Blue Devils finished 5-3 in their abbreviated first season, and attracted nearly 4,000 fans to their first game on Sept. 1, 2018.

Student life

Student organizations

On campus extracurricular activities include leadership opportunities and more than 60 student clubs and organizations. Student Government represents all organizations on campus. The university generally allows new student clubs in any interest area if they are supported by a student petition with at least 30 signatures.

Fraternities and sororities

The University is also home to chapters of fraternities, including Alpha Sigma Phi, Theta Tau, Sigma Pi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Phi Kappa Upsilon, and Phi Beta Sigma. The sororities represented on campus include Chi Omega Rho, Delta Tau Sigma, Delta Phi Epsilon, and Kappa Beta Gamma.

Notable alumni