Valparaiso University: An Overview

Mission Statement

Valparaiso University, a community of learning dedicated to excellence and grounded in the Lutheran tradition of scholarship, freedom, and faith, prepares students to lead and serve in both church and society.

The Aims of the University

The University is dedicated to superior teaching based on excellent scholarship.  As a scholarly community, it actively engages in the exploration, transmission, and enlargement not only of knowledge but also an understanding of the cultural and religious heritage of human society, respect for the individual, and development of a critically inquiring spirit.  The University aims to develop these values in its students, together with a sense of vocation and social responsibility.  The University is committed to actively foster these values through curricular and co-curricular opportunities in a learning community that works together to understand, welcome, and contribute to a culturally and racially diverse campus community and world.  The University believes these values receive their deepest meaning and strength in a Christian environment.

These basic commitments enable the University to graduate students whose individual achievements and aspirations are linked invariably to larger social, moral, and spiritual horizons of meaning and significance.  The University is proud of its many alumni who carry its values into leadership roles throughout society, and is dedicated to graduating such leaders.

Faith and Learning

The University’s concern for the personal and intellectual development of each student is rooted in its Lutheran heritage.  This concern guides the University’s approach to learning.  Beyond the courses in theology that the curriculum provides, the University emphasizes a Christian freedom that liberates the scholar to explore any idea, theory, and vocation uniting faith and intellectual honesty.  In its residential life the University leads students to accept personal responsibility for their development and encourages a sense of caring for one another.

The Chapel of the ResurrectionStanding together at the center of the campus, the inspiring Chapel of the Resurrection and the award-winning Christopher Center for Library and Information Services, which opened in 2004, express the University’s belief in the enduring relationship between faith and learning.  The University’s motto – In luce tua videmus lucem – “In Thy light we see light” emphasizes this relationship.  A new University Union, currently under construction adjacent to the Center for the Arts, which opened in 1995, will be the fourth major building defining the core of campus and symbolizing the University’s commitment to fulfilling the spiritual, intellectual, social, and artistic needs of the community.

The Chapel is the focal point for worship and the site of many cultural events.  Both Sunday and daily services bring together members of the University and the local community who wish to worship together.  Students and professional chapel staff share leadership in a broad and creative ministry.  As the University welcomes students and faculty of varied denominations and religious traditions, so it welcomes the involvement of community churches in its students’ lives.  A Roman Catholic student center, for example, is located next to the campus, and churches of other denominations offer transportation to their services.

Academic Programs and Faculty

The Office of the Provost has administrative responsibilities for the academic programs at Valparaiso University.  The Provost serves in a position similar to that of a chief operating officer, and as the chief executive officer when the President is absent from campus.  In addition to providing leadership for the academic programs, in the current organization structure, the Provost provides oversight for three of the vice presidents: administration and finance, marketing, and student affairs.

The University offers more than 70 fields of study in five undergraduate colleges, the law school, and the graduate division.  The major academic units are:

A commitment to teaching characterizes the faculty members.  Educated at leading research universities, they care about students, an attitude made visible by the frequent individual interactions they invite.  Above all, they enjoy teaching and believe their work enriches not only their students’ but their own lives.   Senior faculty members as well as newer faculty teach both introductory and advanced courses.  The University embodies in its faculty an ideal of the teacher-scholar, one who recognizes that teaching is based on continuing scholarship.  Members of the faculty have achieved outstanding reputations in their particular fields.  They regularly pursue, with marked success, grants from government organizations and private foundations to promote research and improve instruction.  The faculty-student ratio is 13:1 and the typical class size is 22.

Student Body

The University is committed to achieve and embrace a culturally and racially diverse campus community.  As such, the University admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation or (as qualified herein) religion, to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities, generally accorded or made available to students at the school.

Total enrollment for the 2006-07 academic year was approximately 3,900 students, including 3,000 undergraduate students, 500 students enrolled in the School of Law, and 400 graduate students.  Valparaiso’s undergraduate student population is comprised of 52% women and 48% men, with students coming from 47 states and 48 countries.  The average SAT score for freshmen is 1148, and the average ACT score is 25.5.  Approximately one-third of entering freshmen ranked in the top 10% of their high school class.  The University has an 85% retention rate between the freshman and sophomore year, and 73% of entering freshmen graduate within six years.

Valpo students also are engaged outside the classroom, participating in numerous volunteer and service learning activities as well as in a wide variety of campus organizations and recreational sports.

The Arts

Valpo’s music ensembles are popular goodwill ambassadors of the University and play a significant role in the University’s reputation for excellence in the arts.  The University Chorale, for example, has been invited to perform at the home of the President of Germany and is one of the music ensembles that tours regularly in the United States and abroad.  University Theatre productions are enthusiastically received by members of campus and the larger community.

Brauer Museum of Art is viewed as a unique cultural treasure in the region.  In addition to exhibitions from its impressive collection of 19th and 20th century American art, the museum features highly regarded traveling exhibitions.  The museum houses the largest known collection of the works of Junius Sloan, a Hudson River School painter who lived and worked in the Midwest.

Athletics

Valparaiso University CrusadersValpo’s 18 teams and nearly 500 student athletes participate in NCAA Division I (I-AA for football) in the Horizon League, except for football, in which they compete in the non-scholarship Pioneer Football League (the Horizon League does not sponsor football).  The primary facility for athletics and intramural activities is the Athletics-Recreation Center (ARC).  The current Campaign includes renovation of the football facility to include a synthetic playing surface and an all-weather track.

Valpo is known for the academic quality of its student-athletes.  In spring 2007, nine Valpo teams were recognized by the NCAA for their multi-year Academic Progress Rate scores.  The number of Valpo teams cited by the NCAA was the highest for any institution in the Horizon League and the second highest for a Division I institution in Indiana.

Perhaps most widely known among the Valpo teams is its men’s basketball team coached by Homer Drew.  His son, Bryce Drew, who led the team to an improbable Sweet Sixteen appearance in the 1998 NCAA basketball tournament, is now the team’s associate head coach.  The women’s basketball team also has made several NCAA tournament appearances.

Alumni

Maintaining a strong relationship with its alumni is important to Valpo and its future.  Alumni represent a critical resource for many aspects of the University’s life.  It would be difficult – and in some cases impossible – for Valpo to realize its financial and other goals without the active involvement and support of alumni.  The University provides a variety of programs and services to the entire alumni population and represents the interests of alumni.  The University has 41,000 reachable alumni.  During a typical four-year period, nearly 45% of the alumni make a financial contribution.

Since its formation by the University in 1934, the Valparaiso University Alumni Association (VUAA) has cultivated the relationship between the University and its alumni.  Any graduate or former student completing at least one semester is a member of the VUAA.

Finances

The University’s operating budget for the 2007-2008 fiscal year is $90 million.  Comprehensive charges, including tuition, room, board, and fees for the 2007–08 academic year are $32,350 per student.  The University has benefited from private philanthropic support at increasing levels in recent years.  During the past five years, gifts to the University have been in the range of $30-$35 million per year.

Governance

The Board of Directors of the University is an independent, self-perpetuating governing body.  Currently, there are 45 Directors, including the President of the University.  Directors are elected to three-year terms and are eligible to serve subsequent terms.  The Board meets four times a year.  In addition to the Executive Committee there are seven standing committees: Administration and Finance, Audit, Facilities and Campus Planning, Governance, Institutional Advancement, Public Relations and Marketing, and Scholarship and Student Life.  In addition to scheduled quarterly meetings some committees meet telephonically as necessary.

University governance reflects campus-wide involvement.  Through the University Council, Faculty Senate, and the Student Senate, faculty, staff, administrators, and students share in the development of University policy, including academic programs.  The 54-member University Council addresses issues of concern to the entire campus community while the 26-member Faculty Senate focuses it deliberations on academic issues and items of concern to the faculty.  The Student Senate advances issues of importance to the student body.

The Community

Valparaiso University is a private university located in the City of Valparaiso, Indiana.  Its size provides a combination of the best aspects of a larger institution with the friendliness of a smaller institution.  In its nearly 150-year history, the University has passed through three distinct phases.  Begun by Methodists in 1859 as an institution pioneering coeducation, the Valparaiso Male and Female College closed in 1871.  It was revived in 1873 by an enterprising educator, Henry Baker Brown, as the Northern Indiana Normal School, renamed Valparaiso College in 1900, and re-chartered in 1906 as Valparaiso University.  During the next 20 years, Valpo won national recognition as a low-cost, no frills institution of higher learning; alumni of this period achieved distinction in their fields as scientists, business and governmental leaders, and other professionals.  The modern era in the University’s history began in 1925 with the purchase of the institution by the Lutheran University Association, a group of LCMS clergy and church laity formed to purchase the University.

Valparaiso is the county seat of Porter County, Indiana, part of the Chicago metropolitan area.  Like the University’s, the city's nickname is Valpo.  Established in 1836 as Portersville, it was renamed Valparaiso in 1837 after Valparaíso, Chile, near which the county’s namesake, David Porter, battled in the War of 1812.

The City, with a population of 30,000, serves as the retail hub for much of Porter County, which has a population of 150,000.  In addition to the University, the City is home to a satellite center for Purdue University North Central and a campus of Ivy Tech Community College.  The quality of the public school system is frequently cited for excellence, and Lutheran and Roman Catholic elementary schools also are highly regarded.

The University’s location provides access to the excitement of Chicago and the beauty of the Indiana Dunes/Lake Michigan shore.  The University is an hour southeast of Chicago, 2.5 hours north of Indianapolis, and an hour west of South Bend.  All three cities provide access to commercial airlines.  The nearby South Shore Line operates trains to Chicago daily.  Interstates 65, 80, 90 and 94, and State Highways 30 and 49 provide easy access to campus.

Additional information about the University

More information on the University may be found at its web site:  www.valpo.edu.  Of particular interest are the following:

Additional information about the City of Valparaiso and Northwest Indiana