In pursuit of defining the Nova Southeastern University of tomorrow, President George L. Hanbury II, Ph.D. collaborated with faculty members, deans, staff, alumni, student leaders, community members, and the board of trustees to create a single-shared vision based on eight core values. The Vision 2025, Mission, and Core Values will collectively guide NSU into the future.
By 2025, NSU will be recognized as a preeminent, professional-dominant, doctoral-research university that provides competitive career advantages to its students and produces alumni who serve and lead with integrity.
The Mission of NSU - a selective, doctoral research university - is to deliver innovative academic programs in a dynamic, lifelong learning and research environment fostering integrity, academic excellence, leadership, and community service through engaged students, faculty and staff.
Integrity involves honesty and fairness, consistency in instruction, ethics of scholarship, freedom of inquiry, and open and truthful engagement with the community through effective communication, policies and practices.
Academic excellence is the provision of the highest quality educational and learning experiences made possible by academically and professionally qualified and skilled instructional faculty and staff, opportunities for contextual learning, state-of-the-art facilities, beautiful surroundings, and effective resources necessary to support learning at the highest level. Additionally, academic excellence reflects the successful relationship between engaged learners and outstanding instructional faculty and staff.
Diversity includes, but is not limited to, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, philosophy, gender, physical characteristics, socioeconomic status, age, and sexual orientation. It also includes differences in views, interpretations, and reactions, with mutual respect for all. Diversity makes NSU a stronger university and enriches a learning environment focused on preparing individuals to live and work in a global society.
Innovation is the creative and deliberate application of teaching, research, scholarship and service for effective education, and the development of useful products or processes providing a value added to the community.
Nova Southeastern was founded in Fort Lauderdale, Florida during a time of historic social and cultural change. Looking back, 1964 was the perfect time for a small university with a handful of students and some revolutionary ideas to take shape.
They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And if it werent for a group of businessmen who met regularly for this meal, Nova Southeastern University might not be here today. Known as The Oatmeal Club, these civic-minded pioneers gathered in the early 60s, determined to develop an innovative educational conceptan MIT of the South, with a twist.
In 1964, what was then called Nova University of Advanced Technology was chartered as a graduate institution in the physical and social sciences. Initially located at 232 East Las Olas Blvd. in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Nova later moved to the former site of Forman Field in Daviean auxiliary airfield during WWII. The field was returned to the community after the war by the state Board of Education to be used for educational purposes as determined by brothers Hamilton and Charles Forman.
Over time, Nova added programs in law, education, business, psychology, engineering andcomputing, and oceanography. In 1972, the university introduced its first off-campus course of study in education. Soon, Nova became nationally recognized for its innovative distance education programs. Today, field-based programs are located on regional campuses throughout Florida, across the country, and at selected international sites.
While Nova University continued to expand its educational reach, Southeastern University of the Health Sciences was also on a course for expansion. The school was created by osteopathic physicians committed to establishing a college in the Southeast. As a result, the Southeastern College of Osteopathic Medicine, as it was first known, opened in 1981.
From 1987 to 1997, Southeastern added colleges of Pharmacy, Optometry, Allied Health, Medical Sciences, and Dental Medicine. In 1994, Nova University merged with Southeastern University of Health Sciences to form Nova Southeastern University and the rest is history.
Today, NSU is classified as a research university with high research activity by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, NSU is 1 of only 50 universities nationwide to also be awarded Carnegies Community Engagement Classification, and is also the largest private, not-for-profit institution in the United States that meets the U.S. Department of Education's criteria as a Hispanic-serving Institution.
NSU has campuses in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Miami, Miramar, Orlando, Palm Beach, and Tampa, Florida, as well as San Juan, Puerto Rico.NSU also offers a vast array of degree programs in fully online or hybrid formats. Having pioneered distance education more than 40 years ago, NSU's online education experience is unparalleled and has served as a model for other institutions across the country.
NSU has always had an innovative, unique approach to education. NSUoffers a personal, nurturing atmosphere. But NSU is also an exciting university young, bold and forward thinking. With so many traditional and non-traditional learning opportunities, NSU is the ideal place to reach your potential.