Franciscan University of Steubenville

The purpose of the Corporation [University] is to further the higher education of men and women through programs of liberal, professional, and pre-professional studies leading to the conferral of the baccalaureate and master degrees arts and sciences. Said degrees shall be conferred by the provisions of the Articles of Incorporation of the University and the laws of the State of Ohio.
"It shall be the further purpose of the University, publicly identified as a Catholic and a Franciscan institution, to promote the moral, spiritual, and religious values of its students. The University will be guided by the example and teaching of St. Francis of Assisi." (Bylaws)
In the spirit of higher learning in the Catholic tradition, our curriculum integrates your education's intellectual and spiritual dimensions. It challenges you to reason and communicate more effectively and see your professional goals from a new and exciting perspective. Our academics emphasize a personalized approach from professors who genuinely care about your educational and individual successes. Our student-to-faculty ratio is 15:1, and all students have a faculty advisor who knows them on a first-name basis. Our professors also make it a priority to keep flexible office hours to accommodate even the tightest class schedules. Whether your goals are to pursue a career after college, continue to graduate studies, or pursue a religious vocation, you will get a solid foundation at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.
The core curriculum is a joint educational experience shared by all undergraduate students at Franciscan University. This Core, newly revised and implemented since 2013, reflects our ongoing commitment to academic excellence and the integration of faith and reason. Based on the Western intellectual tradition, our Franciscan educational heritage, and the Catholic mission of Franciscan University, the Core purposefully exposes our students to the fundamental knowledge, critical authors, scientific findings and processes, and diverse learning experiences they need to become well-educated Catholics and citizens of the world.
The Franciscan University Core is inspired by the vision of Catholic education laid out by St. John Paul II in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, a document that calls Catholic universities creatively to disseminate and inspire in students a love for knowledge that serves the good of all people. Ex Corde also challenges Catholic universities to become instruments of cultural transformation and progress. To be such an instrument, a Catholic university must foster an interested, caring, and dedicated relationship with the Church and be willing to honor its Catholic mission and identity. A primary way that Franciscan University expresses its commitment to the idea of Catholic higher education described in Ex Corde is through its Core. Ultimately, the Core seeks to arouse students' love of knowledge, their appreciation for the unity of all truth, and courage to live an authentic Christian life in which they witness to Christ in whichever vocation to which they are called.
The Core comprises 45 credit hours for Bachelors of Arts degree-seeking students, and 42 credit hours for Bachelors of Science degree-seeking students. In the Core, students will take courses that teach them about how to understand the human person from a Catholic and Christian perspective and how to discern what it means to live an upstanding life in response to the call to goodness. They will encounter ideas that encourage a more profound sense of wondering and marveling at reality and foster an appreciation of the unexpected depth, richness, and mystery of the world around us. Students will read and learn how to analyze epic, drama, and lyric masterpiece texts. They likewise will describe how works of art reveal theological and philosophical truths and simultaneously are the handmaids of those truths. Through the Core experience, students will engage in a holistic study of the past by examining all aspects of culture, including religion, philosophical ideas, politics, society, military history, and economics. In keeping with the Franciscan identity of the University, students will learn about and be able to describe the Franciscan Order and its unique founding, history, and influence on the world. Finally, students will be exposed to the natural and social sciences, in addition to mathematics and economics, which will enable them to articulate the nature of scientific and social scientific theories, analyze how scientific issues impact the world and understand the limits of the scientific method when examining some social phenomenon they will be able to apply mathematical reasoning to mathematics and a variety of other disciplines.
Franciscan University embraces the rigorous academic demands of the Catholic intellectual tradition, "consecrating itself without reserve to the cause of truth" (Ex Corde Ecclesiae). Our professors encourage and expect the highest academic achievement in every discipline, seeing faith and reason as allies, not enemies. Truth from any source is from the Holy Spirit, St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, so our faculty boldly pursue every truth, guiding and encouraging our students along that ennobling path.
Since 1998, U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges" guidebook has ranked the Franciscan University of Steubenville in the elite "top tier" of Midwestern universities and the academic excellence of our incoming students continues to rise. In 2014, the average ACT score of new first-year students was 25, which is 5 points higher than the national average. Their average SAT score was 1165, more than 150 points higher than the national average.
For our excellent academics and conservative environment, Young America's Foundation rates Franciscan as one of the nation's top 10 conservative colleges. In July 2014, FORBES Magazine named Franciscan University to its 2014 list of America's Top Colleges, which put Franciscan in the top 8 percent of the 4,500-plus colleges in the United States. Since 2011, Kiplinger's Personal Finance has ranked Franciscan in the top 100 four-year private institutions that combine outstanding academics with affordable cost. Moreover, The Templeton Honor Roll for Education in a Free Society considers Franciscan one of the 13 colleges that are "best in liberal arts education."