Welcome to NSU

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.  We are proud to acknowledge the students who come to us from thirty-six different countries, located in placed all across the globe.

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 active in bringing the best technological upgrades to you and you will see that in our on-line courses, but also in our campus classrooms that are equipped unlike many other places our size. At NSU you will find opportunities to explore course work in many differing disciplines. This catalog will bring you a solid introduction to all that our university 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.

Your future will be bright as a result of what you learn and do while at NSU - I urge you to begin creating that bright future right now!

	James M. Smith, Ph.D. President

About Northern State University

Northern State University is a premier residential institution characterized by outstanding instruction, extraordinary community relations, and unparalleled extracurricular opportunities.

Since 2007 NSU has been consistently 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.

1. 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.
2. Graduate programs
   
   Masters degrees in banking and financial services, education, E-learning and music education.

Purpose

NSU is a University dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the liberal arts and in graduate and professional education. Its distinctiveness in its pursuit of mission derives from its coeducational and residential character; its size and location; and its role as a public, state-sponsored University.

Vision

Northern State University will be a nationally-recognized, student-centered institution committed to academic and extracurricular excellence, providing high quality programs, cutting-edge technology, and global learning opportunities in a beautiful Midwestern setting.

Values

NSU’s students, faculty, and staff are drawn together by the following values:

Connect: Highest ethical integrity in all we do. A commitment to responsible stewardship. Development of human, intellectual, cultural, financial, and environmental resources.

Enable: Teamwork, cooperation and mutual respect in an environment that is diverse in knowledge, culture, and world view. Striving to deliver seamless, student-centered, and experience-rich educational opportunities.

Educate: Expanding research and teaching to issues of importance to our community, state and region. Assuring academic rigor and the highest standards of excellence in all intellectual inquiry.

Principles

Academic Freedom and Responsibility

1. Academic freedom is guaranteed to faculty members subject only to accepted standards of professional responsibility including, but not limited to, those herein set forth:
   1. 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.
   2. 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.
   3. 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.
2. 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.
   1. 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.
   2. 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.
   3. 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 Art and Design
11250 Roger Bacon Drive Suite 21
Reston, VA 20190-5248

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
Accreditation Council of Business Schools and Programs
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 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
Network of International Business Schools
North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
Upper Midwest Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers