/Institutions/University-of-Northern-Colorado/json/2025-2026/Undergraduate-Catalog-local.json

/Institutions/University-of-Northern-Colorado/json/2025-2026/Undergraduate-Catalog.json

University of Northern Colorado Points of Pride

• At UNC, 44% of its students are first in their families to attend college in 2024, compared to the national average of 34% and the 37% at Colorado public colleges and universities (2021). UNC has earned state and national recognition for serving First Generation students well in 2024.
• The Colorado Legislature designated UNC as the primary institution for undergraduate and graduate teacher education in the state and alumni K-12 educators currently serve every county in Colorado.
• UNC has the oldest Gender Studies program in Colorado, which was originally founded as a women's studies program in 1974 and attracted students to learn about the development and culture of gender, sexuality and inequality both past and present.
• DownBeat Magazine has rated UNC's University Orchestra the top university orchestra in the United States repeatedly for more than 10 years (2021).
• Celebrating more than 60 years of nursing education excellence, our BS in Nursing program is one of the best in Colorado and ranks #54 in the nation, with a 95-100% passage rate on the national licensing exam for registered nurses.
• UNC earned recognition as a “Best of the Best” LGBTQ-friendly campus based on the Campus Pride index.
• Each year, students host the UNC International Film Series, the longest-running student film program in Colorado.
• UNC has the only accredited, online B.A. in American Sign Language Interpretation program in the nation by the Commission on Collegiate Interpreter Education.
• Our Monfort College of Business is ranked #1 in the world for experimental Accounting Information Systems (AIS) research and #9 in the world for all other AIS research, where accounting, systems and analytics intersect. The top recognition, from among more than 630 universities measured, comes from the annual Brigham Young University Accounting rankings for research quality.
• UNC is a recipient of the prestigious Christa McAuliffe Award for Excellence in Teacher Preparation from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
• Our Monfort College of Business is the first and only business school to receive the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award from the Office of the President of the United States.
• The arts are part of the UNC student experience: Our School of Music is home to 25 musical ensembles and our School of Theatre Arts and Dance stages seven mainstage productions and more than 30 student productions each year as well as being home to the Little Theater of the Rockies, the oldest professional summer stock theatre west of the Mississippi River and in the state of Colorado.
• Our Jazz Studies program has won more than 150 DownBeat Magazine awards in the last 30 years.
• 26 UNC alumni have appeared in 67 different Broadway productions — a record unmatched by any other BA Musical Theatre program in the country.
• UNC is well-represented at the Olympics—competing and behind the scenes: one student proved to be 5^th best women’s weightlifter in the world at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, 14 alumni are employed with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and six alumni are employed with the Special Olympics organization.
• The university's Rocky Mountain Cancer Rehabilitation Institute is the only comprehensive cancer rehabilitation facility of its kind, providing individualized prescriptive exercise and dietary intervention for cancer treatment-related symptoms.
• Last year, the UNC Softball team won two consecutive Big Sky Tournament titles and a bid to the NCAA Softball Tournament.
• UNC’s School of Art and Design is led by award-winning director who was named Art Educator of the Year by the Colorado Art Education Association for excellence in contributions, service and professional achievements in the field of visual arts education.
• With our strong legacy of teaching that started in 1889, UNC has educated more education professionals than any other university in Colorado and more than 30% of Colorado Teachers of the Year are UNC alumni.
• Our James A. Michener Library is home to the bulk of the alumnus and Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s writing and publishing legacy.
• In 2024, UNC received the federal designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) by the U.S. Department of Education.
• Our student athletes succeed in the classroom and in competition: earning the highest GPA in the NCAA Division 1 Big Sky Athletic Conference for 19^th consecutive semesters—a cumulative GPA of 3.26—and winning eight Big Sky volleyball tournament championships and earning an NCAA championship berth for the seventh time. Go Bears!