Throughout its more than 135-year history, University of Jamestown has consistently stood for academic excellence and Christian principles in all that it does. Catalogs published by the University from the very earliest years declare the commitment of this institution to the highest and best. The mission statement and current values of the University are included below:
Mission Statement
The University of Jamestown is a community dedicated to the development of wholeness in our students. We adhere to a curriculum of academic excellence which blends the liberal arts with sound professional preparation. Our commitment to the Christian faith encourages an atmosphere of self-discipline, responsibility, and concern for the continuing growth of the individual.
History and Heritage
In 1861 Dakota Territory was created by the Congress of the United States to include the present states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and the northern half of Wyoming. Homesteading began in 1868, and Texas cowmen moved longhorn cattle to great open-range spreads in that portion of the territory known as “Little Missouri Country.” By 1872 the Northern Pacific Railway had reached Jamestown.
In the part of the territory that is now western North Dakota, a French nobleman, the Marquis de Mores, ranched and built a meat packing plant; another Frenchman, Pierre Wibaux, started a ranching operation that was to become the largest in the United States; and a young man from New York, Theodore “Old Four Eyes” Roosevelt, began a career that was to take him to the White House.
Amid this excitement and growth, dedicated Presbyterian settlers met to discuss the founding of a college. The first liberal arts college in the area, University of Jamestown was incorporated in 1883 and chartered in 1884 under sponsorship of the Presbyterian Church, which recognized its responsibility to “promote the progress of our divine religion and to maintain and improve Christian citizenship, believing that these objects cannot be attained without the proper education of our youth under Christian influences.”
The first classes at University of Jamestown began in September of 1886, three years before North Dakota became a state. By the end of the University’s second year, eighty-two students were pursuing degrees under the tutelage of five professors. Physical facilities were meager and circumstances difficult on the open prairie. The college hill had only one building and a barn for horses. Wood stoves furnished heat and oil lamps provided light. The extremely cold winter of 1886 contributed to the onset of economic problems. After closing during the financial panic of 1893, the University was reopened in 1909 by the North Dakota Synod under the leadership of President Barend H. Kroeze. Dr. Kroeze was to set in motion forces that would allow the University to grow and prosper as it “encouraged the development of an educated Christian citizenship” and sought “to offer a liberal culture combined with moral training.”
The current 110 acres of wooded land the Jamestown campus now occupies bears little resemblance to the bleak site upon which the founders stood and pondered the future of their own lives and that of a fledgling college. Today, University of Jamestown overlooks a progressive city of sixteen thousand people which offers a variety of recreational facilities and warm hospitality. Modern facilities now grace “College Hill,” including the architectural prize-winning Raugust Library, which houses more than 150,000 items; Larson Center; Seibold and Prentice residence halls; Lyngstad Center, a modern classroom facility; the Reiland Fine Arts Center, with its exceptional concert/performance hall; the Unruh and Sheldon Center for Business and Computer Science; the Ed and Elaine Nafus Student Center; the Foss Fitness Center; the remodeled Liechty Center-Taber Hall; the McKenna Thielsch Center with its nursing and science labs; and the Harold Newman Arena. The College has also recently completed a 13,350 square foot building in Fargo to house the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program.
In January 2020 the University divided into the Undergraduate College and the College of Graduate and Professional Studies. The Undergraduate College is the home to all of the undergraduate programs of study housed on the Jamestown campus. The DPT and all master’s programs are in the College of Graduate and Professional Studies along with the university’s online undergraduate programs and UJ Accelerated.
Only the University’s objectives have remained unchanged. These are reaffirmed in our goal of academic excellence in a Christian environment and in our determination to equip our students to face new problems and challenges in a changing world. Those objectives are realized not only through a quality faculty and curriculum but also through outstanding facilities and co-curricular programs, such as athletics, choir, and drama. We believe a Christian environment is crucial to the educational process. It provides discipline to the development and freedom of the mind and imparts a spiritual dimension of hope and grace. University of Jamestown and the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) have an historical relationship, and they maintain their relationship by a covenant agreement to support one another in their respective missions.
Our size and location in a small North Dakota community facilitates our mission to provide students with meaningful individual guidance and support by competent and concerned faculty. That is the essence of the quality liberal arts education.
Foundational Values
As an institution of higher education in the Presbyterian tradition, we celebrate God through the use of our minds and the exercise of reason, believing that God is the source of all truth. “You shall love the Lord our God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).
Our Christian and Reformed tradition embraces the liberal arts and the ongoing search for knowledge and truth as a way of liberating the human spirit and of understanding the world we share with others. University of Jamestown promotes education as a means to improve lives, search for vocation, and create lifelong seekers of truth and wisdom. We value the life of the mind and the life of the spirit and therefore hold that faith and reason reinforce each other and that through mind, heart, and hands one can honor God and serve humanity.
Historically, this strong belief that learning and the search for truth are closely connected to faith formed the basis for the Presbyterian Church’s early and significant commitment to higher education. As a result, prior to the Civil War, one-fourth of the colleges in the United States were Presbyterian. In 1883, when the Presbyterian Church extended its mission into the Dakota Territory’s frontier, University of Jamestown was founded in a newly incorporated city ninety miles west of Fargo.
University of Jamestown is a fully independent, self-governing institution that shares an historic relationship with the Presbyterian Church (USA). We are proudly non-sectarian and welcome students of all faiths and beliefs. Our Latin motto, “Lux et Veritas,” proclaims to all that the pursuit of truth lights our journey today as it has since 1883.
Accreditation, Approvals, Memberships, and Affiliations
The University of Jamestown is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. You can obtain or review accreditation documents by contacting the Higher Learning Commission at the address provided below:
The Higher Learning Commission
230 South LaSalle Street, Suite 7-500
Chicago, Illinois 60604-1411
Phone: 800-621-7440/312-263-0456
Fax: 312-263-7462
info@hlcommission.org http://www.hlccommission.org/
The University of Jamestown has been continuously accredited since 1920. Its teacher education program is approved by the Education Standards & Practices Board of North Dakota; and its nursing program is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) and by the State Board of Nursing Education and Nursing Licensure.
The Physical Therapy Program at the University of Jamestown is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education (CAPTE): 1111 North Fairfax Street; Alexandria, VA, 22314; phone: 703-706-3245; email: accreditation@apta.org; website: http://capteonline.org. The program’s current status is probationary accreditation; for more information see http://www.capteonline.org/WhatWeDo/RecentActions/PublicDisclosureNotices/.
The University also holds memberships in the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities, the Council of Independent Colleges, and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. The University also has a number of affiliation and consortium agreements with medical facilities that provide clinical experience for its students.
Reservation of the Right to Modify
The programmatic and financial information herein are to be considered directive in character and not as an irrevocable contract between the student and the University. The University reserves the right to make changes that seem necessary or desirable, including course cancellations. Catalog information is subject to change without notice.