The Mission and History of the University of Jamestown

Mission Statement

The University of Jamestown is a student-centered university dedicated to the development of wholeness in all members of our community. 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.

Identity Statement

The University of Jamestown exists to develop wholeness in all members of our community and to serve its students in a friendly, caring environment. Supported by faculty and staff who are committed to the success of our students, we make the transitions into college and from college-to-career as stress-free as possible.

We value academic excellence as well as a highly engaged student body, faculty, and staff. We blend the liberal arts with professional programs with the goal of graduating students who are well rounded and foundationally prepared for careers that are ever changing in an expanding global economy and lives that are lived in an increasingly complex society.

We believe that students can thrive in a variety of learning environments, whenever and however courses are offered. We promote a residential experience for our traditional undergraduate students, recognizing that a living-learning environment provides an outstanding opportunity for academic, social, and spiritual maturation and persistence. We provide online and hybrid offerings for learners who prefer the flexibility such formats offer while demanding a level of academic rigor that builds character, promotes ethical development, and leads to success in the workplace and further educational endeavors.

We are a Christian university founded in the Presbyterian tradition which welcomes students, faculty, and staff members of all faiths and denominations and fosters the spiritual lives of all members of our community.

Vision Statement

The University of Jamestown seeks to be the best career-oriented, liberal arts university in the Midwest with a presence that extends into other strategically chosen regions across the United States.

We will do so through offering innovative academic programs in a variety of formats that blend the best of the liberal arts tradition with professional training in an engaged, student-centered, Christian environment that cultivates lifelong personal and professional success.

Values Statement

You shall love the Lord our God with all our God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

The University of Jamestown is a fully independent, self-governing institution that shares an historic relationship with the Presbyterian Church (USA). We are non-sectarian and welcome students, faculty, and staff 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.

As a Christian 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. We believe that learning and the search for truth are closely connected to faith.

We embrace the ongoing search for knowledge and truth as a way of liberating the human spirit and of understanding the world we share with others. The 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.

Institutional Objectives

The University of Jamestown is committed to measuring its success in fulfilling its mission and enhancing its academic offerings through continuous assessment of student learning. The following 15 institutional objectives guide the University's comprehensive assessment plan and serve as the bridge between program outcomes and the University mission.

University of Jamestown:

Student Learning

• maintains academic, professional, and pre-professional programs that prepare students for entry into the work force or for further education; (Academic Preparation)   
• provides undergraduate students with a general education curriculum rooted in the liberal arts to improve critical thinking skills and increase general knowledge; (General Education)
• offers co-curricular opportunities to develop wholeness in students as they learn and grow on a personal, social and civic level; (Engagement)  
• provides opportunities for students to learn basic ethical principles, serve others, and to engage in character-building activities; (Character Building)   
• provides support services to assist students in achieving their academic and career goals; (Academic Support Services)  
• fosters an appreciation of difference through the integration of curricular and co-curricular experiences that are intentionally developed to help students integrate into a global society; (Diversity)  
• provides opportunities for students to be involved in Christian religious life activities and to explore their faith; (Christian Life/Religious Life Environment)  

Community Engagement

• recognizes and fosters opportunities to connect with, integrate into, and participate and serve in the larger communities in which it resides; (Community)
• demonstrates its commitment to continuous improvement through discipline-specific and pedagogical faculty development; (Faculty Development)
• demonstrates its commitment to continuous improvement through staff development; (Staff Development)  
• maintains mutually beneficial relationships with alumni and institutional friends; (Development)
• operates within a system of shared governance in which the opinions and values of constituents contribute to decisions and responsibility for success is shared; (Shared Governance)  

Stewardship and Fiscal Integrity

• uses current technology to enhance student learning, administrative efficiency, and institutional effectiveness; (Technology)   
• maintains the infrastructure necessary to support both the academic program and student life; (Infrastructure)  
• manages financial resources to support its objectives and strategies in a manner that ensures the institution’s viability in the short- and long terms; (Sound Fiscal Management)

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 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 University also completed a 13,350 square foot building in Fargo to house the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program, which matriculated its first class in the fall of 2013.

In January 2021 the University divided into the Undergraduate College and the College of Graduate and Professional Studies. The Undergraduate College is the home to all the undergraduate programs of study housed on the Jamestown campus with the exception of the School of Nursing. The graduate programs are in the College of Graduate and Professional Studies along with the University’s online undergraduate programs and the School of Nursing.

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.

The Jamestown Journey to Success

With the first class of their first semester, University of Jamestown students begin a journey—a journey to success. The metaphor of the journey is apt because it reminds both students and those working with them to keep thinking about where the chosen path will lead. We want each student to make the most of his or her four years at the University of Jamestown. And as with any journey, the best way to make the most of it is to keep one’s eyes open in order to see as much as possible. Therefore, the Jamestown Journey to Success emphasizes the importance of looking:

Students Look Inward through examining their own interests, strengths, goals, and dreams. This begins in UJ Foundations where students meet in small groups each week with a faculty/staff teacher and an upper-class student guide. Teachers and guides provide the students with analytic instruments and hold discussions to help them think carefully about what they want to accomplish both inside and outside the classroom during the next four years. This results in thoughtful choices of major and minor areas of study as well as involvement in co-curricular activities.

Students Look Outward by asking how to take the talents and strengths they have identified and use them not only to accomplish their own goals but to serve those around them. All students at the University of Jamestown do community service. Students also have the chance to help others distant from the college through mission trips with groups such as Habitat for Humanity and the Presbyterian Church in Kenya or to serve those in our own community through groups like Students of Service, Champions of Character, and many others.

Students Look Beyond in order to learn about people, cultures, and ways of life different than their own. This happens through overseas travel to places like China, Costa Rica, Kenya, or Italy or within the U.S. to cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, or New York. But travel is not the only way to learn about new ideas and diverse perspectives; right on our own campus students can take advantage of International Week, Foreign Film Festivals, or interaction with international students.

Students Look Forward as they make use of college resources to prepare themselves for that next step into the world of work or further graduate study. Career Services offers student individual assistance in searching for a job or selecting a graduate school. University programs allow students to choose among a wide range of sessions on topics such as networking, interviewing, business etiquette, resume writing, applying to graduate school, and many more.

The Jamestown Journey is our way of ensuring that each student’s journey fits his or her needs, helps meet the needs of others, and leads to a successful future. The Journey also includes a co-curricular transcript for students who want them. There are very few times in students’ lives when they will be surrounded by so many others dedicated to helping them reach their goals as during the years of their journey at the University of Jamestown.