 Northern State University provides students with an unmatched educational experience. It is a unique institution where students are provided the opportunity to engage with the best of academics, cultural arts, and athletics. It is also a place where international cultures come together for the purpose of exploring the very finest elements of an undergraduate or graduate education.
As a teaching institution, Northern faculty are committed to presenting academic materials in a challenging but intimate environment. Your classes here will be small. Your interactions, though, will be very large in scale. On this campus we are proud to host, for the entire state of South Dakota, the Center of Excellence for E-Learning and for International Business. Our offerings reflect the importance of these two specific designations to the academic life of our entire campus community. This catalog will bring you a solid introduction to all that Northern has to offer. By choosing specific courses or a specified plan of study, we are confident that our curriculum will allow you to be tremendously successful in whatever field you might choose. Northern is a place where you can truly be yourself; we are an institution that is dedicated to allowing you to explore and create to the absolute limits of your imagination. I urge you to begin your explorations right now.
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Be You. Be Us. Be Northern! |
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James M. Smith, Ph.D.
President |
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About Northern State University
Northern State University is a premier residential institution characterized by outstanding instruction, extraordinary community relations, and unparalleled extracurricular opportunities.
In August of 2007 NSU was named by US News and World Report as one of the best undergraduate public institutions in the Midwest. For more information about NSU, visit our web site at www.northern.edu.
Mission Statement
The legislature established Northern State University to meet the needs of the State, the region, and nation by providing undergraduate and graduate programs in education and other courses or programs as the Board of Regents may determine. (SDCL 13-59-1)
The Board implemented SDCL 13-59-1 by authorizing graduate and undergraduate programs in education to promote excellence in teaching and learning, to support research, scholarly and creative activities, and to provide service to the State of South Dakota, the region, and the nation. The Board approved a special emphasis on E-learning in the university curriculum and service.
Curriculum
Degrees are authorized at the associate, baccalaureate, and masters levels. The following curriculum is approved for the university.
- Undergraduate Programs
Associate degree programs in arts and sciences, business, education and fine arts. Baccalaureate degree programs in arts and sciences, business, education, and fine arts.
- Graduate programs
Masters degree in education and E-learning.
Vision
Northern State University is an historic, public institution of higher education established on an attractive campus in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The NSU community takes pride in the institution and in providing an advanced teaching and learning environment. Integrating technology across the curriculum, NSU offers excellence in liberal and professional education with programs in Arts and Sciences, Business, Education and Fine Arts.
Values
NSU’s students, faculty, and staff are drawn together by the following values:
Community: With strong ties to our city and region, we are a welcoming community of scholars and learners, with a focus on a student-centered environment.
Scholarship: We engage in research and creative activities in an innovative atmosphere of intellectual rigor, with academic freedom and integrity.
Citizenship: We educate individuals for a lifetime of learning and service to their ever-changing communities, nations, and world.
Academic Freedom and Responsibility
- Academic freedom is guaranteed to faculty members subject only to accepted standards of professional responsibility including, but not limited to, those herein set forth:
- The importance of academic freedom to teaching and learning is recognized and accepted. Academic freedom includes the right to study, discuss, investigate, teach and publish. Academic freedom applies to both teaching and research. Freedom in research is fundamental to the advancement of truth. Academic freedom in its teaching aspect is fundamental for the protection of the rights of the teacher in teaching and of students to freedom in learning. It includes the freedom to perform one’s professional duties and to present differing and sometimes controversial points of view, free from reprisal. The faculty member is entitled to freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the performing of other assigned academic duties.
- Faculty members are entitled to freedom in the classroom in the discussion of their subject. They have the freedom to include the presentation of various scholarly views.
- The concept of freedom should be accompanied by an equally demanding concept of responsibility. The faculty members are members of a learned profession. When they speak or write as citizens, they must be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As learned people and as educators, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence, they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others and should indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.
- To secure student freedom in learning, faculty members in the classroom and in seminar should encourage free and orderly discussion, inquiry and expression of the course subject matter. Student performance may be evaluated solely on an academic basis, not on opinions or conduct in matters unrelated to academic standards.
- Students should be free to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered in any course of study and to reserve judgment about matters of opinion, but they are responsible for learning the content of any course of study for which they are enrolled.
- Each institution shall establish an academic appeals procedure to permit review of student allegations that an academic evaluation was tainted by prejudiced or capricious consideration of student opinions or conduct unrelated to academic standards. These procedures shall prohibit retaliation against persons who initiate appeals or who participate in the review of appeals.
- Students are responsible for maintaining standards of academic performance established for each course in which they are enrolled.
Affiliations
Northern State University is an accredited institutional member of
National Association of Schools of Music
11250 Roger Bacon Drive Suite 21
Reston, VA 20190
National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
2010 Massachusetts Avenue NW Suite 500
Washington, DC 20036-1023
Higher Learning Commission
Commission of North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
30 North LaSalle Street Suite 2400
Chicago, IL 60602
South Dakota Department of Education
Kneip Building
700 Governors Drive
Pierre, SD 57501
Member of
American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
American Association of State Colleges and Universities
American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers
American Council of Learned Societies
American Council on Education
Association for Institutional Research
College and University Personnel Association
Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences
National Association College Admissions Counselors
National Association for Business Teacher Education
National Association of College and University Business Officers
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
National Association of Student Personnel Administrators
National Association of Schools of Art and Design
National Association of Schools of Music
National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
Upper Midwest Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers |