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Introduction
Welcome to Northern Arizona University, a comprehensive public university in the heart of the southern Colorado Plateau.

At our main campus in Flagstaff and our statewide offices throughout Arizona, we offer excellence in teaching, research, and public service to the citizens of Arizona and beyond. NAU is governed by the Arizona Board of Regents.

Whether you are a prospective student or have already decided to pursue graduate education at NAU, this Graduate Catalog is designed to give you important information about our graduate programs, our first century of educational service, and our innovative responses to current and future educational needs.

In this introductory chapter, we tell you about our:

For additional information about NAU, we invite you to visit our site on the World Wide Web at http://www.nau.edu.

Our Setting
Northern Arizona University is today a statewide university, with our main campus--and our historical beginnings--in Flagstaff, northern Arizona's largest city.

Flagstaff is surrounded by pines and aspens and is dominated by the majestic San Francisco Peaks. Because of our location on the Colorado Plateau, NAU is close to:

Flagstaff is situated in Coconino National Forest, the largest continuous stand of ponderosa pines in the United States, at an elevation of 7,000 feet (2,135 meters). Our elevation, the clean air, Arizona's sunshine, and the protection provided by the forest give us an unsurpassed climate year round.

In the summer, Flagstaff is cool and comfortable, with an average daytime high temperature of 81deg. Fahrenheit (27deg. Celsius) and a low of 50deg.F (10deg.C). The winter offers sunny days and beautiful snow scenes, and we have an average of 288 days of sunshine each year. With our mild, four-season climate, this area offers excellent conditions for study and recreation.

Flagstaff (population 52,000) has a friendly, small-town atmosphere combined with outstanding cultural, scientific, and recreational opportunities. Our variety of cultural resources includes the Flagstaff Symphony, the Flagstaff Festival of the Arts, the Coconino Center for the Arts, and the Festival of Native American Arts. Our area's natural and cultural history is presented by such institutions as the Museum of Northern Arizona, the Pioneer Historical Museum, and Riordan State Historical Park.

Flagstaff is also an important center for scientific research. The city is home to Lowell Observatory and the Naval Observatory's Arizona station. The U.S. Geological Survey has its astrogeology branch in Flagstaff, and the U.S. Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station is located at NAU's Flagstaff campus.

Flagstaff has airline and transcontinental bus service, and we are on the main route of Amtrak and the Santa Fe Railroad. Several highways pass through Flagstaff, including Interstates 40 and 17 and U.S. Highways 66 and 89. Flagstaff is a little more than two hours north of Phoenix and less than two hours south of Grand Canyon National Park.

Our Diversity of Resources
Flagstaff sits on a volcanic plateau at the base of the highest mountains in Arizona, the San Francisco Peaks at 12,633 feet (3,852m). A few miles south of the city, a spectacular 3,000-foot drop (915m) in elevation marks the Mogollon Rim, which extends across the middle of Arizona and eastward into New Mexico.

Such dramatic changes in elevation create a landscape rich in geological and ecological diversity, as do the area's vast network of canyons and mesas, its lakes and ponds, and its meadows and mountains. The area is also rich in sites of significant historical interest and has many national parks and monuments.

In addition, our area is a living museum of cultural diversity, with the physical evidence of several prehistoric populations--Sinagua, Hohokam, Anasazi, Cohonina, and others--tucked away throughout the landscape. In addition, NAU is fortunate to share northern Arizona with the many Native American peoples who call this area home--Navajo, Hopi, Tewa, Haulapai, Havasupai, Apache, Yavapai-Apache, and Paiute. Ancient and modern, these cultural groups offer us important opportunities for learning and sharing.

Finally, this diverse landscape offers an exciting array of recreational possibilities, from hiking and biking to skiing and backpacking, with sightseeing, photography, fishing, hunting, boating, and birding also among the options. From rafting down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon to hiking through Sedona's red rock country below the Mogollon Rim to experiencing the beauty of the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona, the opportunities for outdoor enjoyment are truly endless.

Our First Century of Service
Within this rich and varied setting, the institution that is today Northern Arizona University has experienced dramatic growth and many changes since it was first established nearly a century ago, even before the State of Arizona had been established.

It began on September 11, 1899, as the Northern Arizona Normal School, with an enrollment of thirty-three students. Four young women from this group made up the first graduating class in 1901, receiving diplomas that warranted them lifetime certificates to teach in the schools of Arizona Territory.

In 1925, thirteen years after Arizona became a state, the Arizona Legislature changed the status of the institution from a normal school to a four-year college that could grant the bachelor of education degree; at that time, the school's name was changed to Northern Arizona State Teachers College.

Graduate work began in 1937, when permission was granted to offer a program leading to the master of arts in education. By 1946, the school had augmented its teacher-education programs by adding majors leading to the bachelor of arts and bachelor of science degrees. A year earlier, the name had been changed again, this time to Arizona State College at Flagstaff.

In 1958, the school began its development as a multipurpose institution by adding a program in forestry. As the number of students and programs continued to grow, the Arizona Legislature granted university status to the school in 1966, and the name was changed to Northern Arizona University. In 1973, the first doctoral students were graduated.

Today, NAU has about 20,000 students (with more than 15,000 in Flagstaff) and offers comprehensive academic programs leading to approximately one hundred baccalaureate, forty master's, and eight doctoral degrees. In addition to the range of programs offered in Flagstaff, we provide statewide instruction through our interactive television and satellite transmission systems, our academic center in Yuma, and twelve additional academic offices throughout Arizona.

As NAU looks toward our second century, we continue developing innovative ways to provide our state's citizens with greater access to educational services to meet the needs of a continually changing Arizona.

Our Centennial Celebration
We are proud of our first century of service, which has seen accomplishments and contributions in an impressive number of areas. To help us recognize these accomplishments and focus on ways to build on them for the future, NAU established themes for each of the five years of our centennial observation:

We invite you to join us in commemorating this first century of service upon which NAU is now building an exciting future.

Our Commitment
to the Future
As we look toward the beginning of our second century of service, we remain committed to offering excellence in teaching, research, and public service. We define our mission as:

In the sections that follow, we describe some of the components of these basic commitments.

Individualized Learning
We are committed to offering high-quality educational programs by emphasizing relatively small classes taught by full-time faculty with appropriate credentials. We also provide faculty advisement to individual students and encourage creative, scholarly, and research opportunities for graduate students working with faculty.

Cultural Diversity
Our university community is a microcosm of the larger society--enriched by many cultures, philosophies, and traditions. We respect the different intellectual traditions and conceptual styles that comprise our country and our world, and we promote them as legitimate expressions of intellectual and academic thought.

Because we recognize the reciprocal value of a diverse student population, we have designed specific recruitment, transition, and retention programs to increase the enrollment and graduation rates of students from underrepresented and ethnic groups, particularly Native Americans.

Relevant Programs
Our programs are shaped in part by this area's geographical and cultural environment. Located on the Colorado Plateau, adjacent to the Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation and within the largest ponderosa pine forest in the nation, NAU continues to build on the resources of our region.

We have also expanded our professional programs in response to rapidly changing career opportunities and the advance of technology. As a result, we have developed a range of graduate degrees that were selected on the basis of opportunities for research, the strengths of our faculty, and the needs of our state and region.

As we look toward the next century, we will continue to offer relevant graduate programs in selected areas consistent with our traditional mission and regional interests. We will also continue developing innovative methods for delivering educational services on our main campus in Flagstaff as well as in the other parts of Arizona.

Serving Arizona
NAU takes very seriously our commitment to provide public service and educational opportunities to the citizens of Arizona.

We offer a variety of public services--from assisting with economic development, particularly with Native Americans, to serving as a fine-arts center for our region. And while we encourage faculty members to pursue a wide range of professional interests, we emphasize those research, scholarly, and creative endeavors that are based on our relationship to the rural areas of the state and to the Colorado Plateau.

We also bring educational courses and programs to the nonmetropolitan areas of the state--through our interactive television and C-band satellite transmission systems, our academic center in Yuma, and statewide offices throughout Arizona. As a result, we have a significant reservoir of opportunities to offer Arizona's citizens in our second century of service.

Our Credentials
NAU is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, 30 North LaSalle Street, Suite 2400, Chicago, IL 60602-2504 (800-621-7440, e-mail: info@ncacihe.org).

Specific NAU programs are accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, the American Chemical Society, the Commission on Accreditation of Dental and Dental Auxiliary Educational Programs of the American Dental Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, the Society of American Foresters, the National Association of Schools of Music, the American Physical Therapy Association, and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. In addition, the Institute for Human Development is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities.

NAU is affiliated with the American Council on Education, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and many other major national and international associations.

Our Organizational Team
In providing academic programs and services to our students and the citizens of Arizona, we work together through traditional academic units, interdisciplinary programs, and offices that direct our statewide mission.

Our academic units include:

Among our interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programs are:

Our statewide services are provided through numerous offices, including:

For graduate education specifically, our academic programs and requirements are coordinated by the Graduate College, at the direction of NAU's Graduate Council, as we explain in the sections that follow.

The Graduate Council
The policies of NAU's Graduate College are formulated by the Graduate Council within the framework of overall university objectives. Our Graduate Council is comprised of faculty members and a student representative. (Two-thirds of the faculty members are elected within their academic units; one-third are appointed by NAU's president.) You can find the official record of Graduate College policies in the Graduate Council's minutes.

The Graduate Catalog is published every other year to advise you of these policies. The Graduate Council may change policies as needs arise, so you should consider the Graduate Catalog an information source rather than an official statement of current policies.

Graduate Council policies may be modified for individual students when justified by professional needs or experiences, but exceptions are not granted merely for the personal needs or convenience of individual students. If you believe an exception to a policy or curriculum requirement is warranted, you can petition the Graduate College.

The Graduate College
At NAU, specific graduate courses and programs are administered through individual academic units, while the Graduate College is responsible for administering the broader academic requirements and services for graduate students. These include:

Our main Graduate College office in Flagstaff is in the Ashurs