Northern State University: Teaching the Plains for Over a Century
Near Aberdeen, South Dakota
Northern State University was founded in nineteen one as Northern Normal and Industrial School, built on the premise that the Dakota frontier needed trained teachers more than it needed almost anything else. The state legislature recognized early that farming communities spread across enormous distances could not attract educated professionals without a local institution to produce them.
Today Northern State enrolls roughly three thousand five hundred students in programs ranging from education and business to the arts and sciences. Its Wolves athletic teams compete in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference at the Division Two level.
The university is the cultural anchor of Aberdeen's north side. Its Jewett Regional Science Education Center serves K through twelve students from across the region, and the campus arts facilities host performances for a community that otherwise sits more than two hours from the nearest major city.
