KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Dakota Wesleyan University has been tabbed as a gold-level Five-Star Institution by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics’ Champions of Character program for the 2025-26 school year.
DWU was among 203 institutions in the NAIA to receive a Champions of Character Five-Star Award, scoring a perfect 100 in the association’s criteria to achieve Gold status. For these awards, institutions are measured on a demonstrated commitment to Champions of Character and earn points in character training, conduct in competition, academic focus, character recognition, and character promotion, which reflect the program’s five core values of integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship, and servant leadership.
This marks the fifth consecutive year that the Tigers have received a perfect score and are among just nine schools to accomplish the feat actively. The continued recognition of DWU student-athletes, both in and out of competition, demonstrates the athletic department’s continued commitment to the Champions of Character core values, along with highlighting the campus’s vast academic, athletic, and personal resources that make major contributions towards this department-wide success. Director of Athletics Ross Cimpl solidified these points in his own comments:
“This award exemplifies not only the effort of our Tiger athletes in the classroom and on the court, field, track, or mat, but the character of our student-athletes as well. All of our coaches do a tremendous job making sure their teams do things the right way, and it shows in the continued success of our department and involvement in the community. Dakota Wesleyan is truly a special place, and being one of just nine active schools to be named a Champions of Character Five-Star Institution fir five years in a row is an incredible accomplishment.”
Dakota Wesleyan University is also a member of a Five-Star Conference in the Great Plains Athletic Conference, which had over 60% of its members named as Five-Star Institutions.