We promise at Augustana that you will find an intellectually challenging environment. But this is also a place where academic rigor is accompanied by generous levels of support from faculty and staff committed to your success.
We promise we will integrate faith in the learning environment. This is a place where it is okay to talk about God and ask questions about faith and where students will understand their faith and the values in which they believe.
We promise we will engage in the community. This is a place where people seek to get to know one another and where relationships are built that are valid and personal. When our students, in turn, promise to challenge themselves intellectually, integrate faith discussions, and engage in our community, the result is a covenant relationship that creates an educational experience of enduring value.
In the Office of Admission, we count ourselves lucky. Each day, we have the privilege of working with students who are imagining the possibilities. They dream of the life they will create and how they might serve the world tomorrow, given the opportunity to explore and discover important ideas today. We invite you to learn more about admission and scholarships, why Augustana is a significant investment, and what it means to Be a Viking. Thank you for considering Augustana – we're looking forward to getting to know you.
Students who enroll at Augustana are attracted by our intellectually challenging yet supportive learning environment, faith integration, and the active and engaged campus community. These Augustana experience elements add up to an education of enduring worth, preparing you for a lifetime of learning and service.
Choosing a college is possibly the most critical decision of your life thus far. We invite you to begin learning about the Augustana community through university-produced videos and viewing photo galleries of student life.
Some call it the Liberal Arts. Others call it teaching for twenty-first-century skills. At Augustana, we specialize in providing an education designed for the innovators and entrepreneurs of tomorrow. Learning from a faculty of renowned professors, here you will build a foundation of knowledge, discover your passions, explore your vocation, develop specialties, and realize the significance and meaning of serving others.
You will have the option to pursue multiple majors and minors while building experience through choice hands-on learning opportunities. And on Commencement Day, you will graduate with a vast professional network, an entrepreneurial mindset, and a passport to possibility.
Founded in 1860, Augustana is a selective, comprehensive university affiliated with the Lutheran Church. With more than 100 majors, minors, and pre-professional programs for undergraduates, along with graduate degree and continuing education programs, the University is committed to enriching lives and fostering development by combining a liberal arts foundation with professional skill and advanced study.
Augustana serves more than 2,000 students from 33 states and 32 countries. Most are part of our residential community and call our 100-acre campus home. Our graduate and continuing education programs serve students online and during times that are convenient for adult learners.
Augustana offers more than 100 majors, minors, and pre-professional specializations within a 4-1-4 academic calendar. Extensive internship, study abroad, undergraduate research, and Civitas, the University's Honors Program supplement the curriculum. Our academic programs promote sensitivity to and appreciation of values essential for students to become useful citizens in local, national, and international communities.
Questions of faith and values blend comfortably into all aspects of life at Augustana. Because the Lutheran tradition values every student's gift for learning, academic integrity is never compromised by slanting education to agree with a particular religious bias. All faith traditions are welcome here. By encouraging students to make career decisions consistent with their faith and values, Augustana educates students for a wide range of careers and professional callings.
Inspired by Lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, Augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity, and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world. Central to the Augustana experience are five core values. The community lives them and honors them, and they infuse the academic curriculum and student life. These five values are identified below, followed by a phrase that sums up the word's essence as it informs the University's mission. These phrases are, in turn, followed by how the value is expressed in the daily life of the University and its people.
Long before "the green" was green ahead of the "the quad's" signature north-campus crisscross and decades before Ole, Viking Days, Vespers, and even the Huddle's early-morning coffee, Augustana University got its start in Hillsboro, Illinois — 650 miles east of Sioux Falls — as a place called Hillsboro Academy in 1835.
At the urging of Lutheran Scandinavian leaders, Hillsboro Academy has renamed The Literary and Theological Institute of The Lutheran Church of the Far West in 1846. A short time later, the school moved north to Springfield, Illinois, where it was renamed again to Illinois State University. According to school records, many of the nation's early influencers attended ISU, including former Secretary of State John Hay and Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln. (photo on the right).
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