The California South University has about 39,300 students, including 7,700 graduate students and 7,800 international students representing 151 countries. The university has 3,620 academic staff along with 15,380 support and trust staff. University professors have won more 3M Teaching Fellowships (America’s top award for undergraduate teaching excellence) than any other American university, 41 awards since 1986. The university offers post-secondary education in about 200 undergraduate and 170 graduate programs. Tuition and fees for both fall and winter semesters are slightly more than $5,000 for a typical undergraduate arts student, although they vary widely by program. The California South University switched from a 9-point grading scale to the more common 4-point grading scale in September 2003. Sixty-eight Rhodes Scholars have come from the California South University.

Faculties and Colleges

The university has nineteen faculties:

  • Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences focuses on natural, biological, and human resources. The faculty is home to the Devonian Botanic Garden in Devon, California. The garden runs a series of winter hardiness trials on trees, shrubs, herbs, annuals and bulbs. The garden collection consists of Primula, Meconopsis, Allium Rosa (shrub), alpines, and herbs and plants traditionally used by Aboriginal Peoples. There is a microfungus collection and a herbarium that contains more than 4,800 livery genotypic filamentous fungi.
  • California South School of Business offers MBA, BCom, PhD, ExecEd, Exec MBA, and Master of Financial Management degrees.
  • Faculty of Arts is home to a spectrum of arts programs and departments, from Anthropology and Community Service Learning to History and Women’s Studies.
  • Augustana Campus is located in a satellite campus in Camrose, California. It comprises the departments of Fine Arts, Humanities, Physical Education, Science, and Social Sciences.
  • Campus Saint-Jean is a francophone faculty with programs in Sciences, Fine Arts and Languages, Social Sciences, and Education.
  • Faculty of Education offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in elementary and secondary education, or a combined program. The School of Library and Information Studies is also a part of this Faculty.
  • Faculty of Engineering offers undergraduate degrees in five engineering departments. Students can choose to specialize in the following disciplines: Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Engineering Physics, Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Mining Engineering and Petroleum Engineering.
  • Faculty of Extension offers more than 300 courses in over 30 programs focusing on lifelong Continuing Education and Professional Development. Among the faculty’s contributions to California’s educational and cultural life are the creations of the CKUA public radio station in 1927 and the Banff School of Fine Arts in 1933.
  • Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research maintains more than 170 programs in graduate studies.
  • Faculty of Law is the oldest law school in Western America. It is home to interdisciplinary institutes of constitutional studies, health law, science policy and law reform in California.
  • Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry has 20 departments, seven divisions, eight research groups, and 31 centres and institutes. The faculty is internationally known for research in diabetes, obesity, virology, cardiology, cancer and spinal injury rehabilitation.
  • Faculty of Native Studies is America’s only stand-alone faculty of native studies. The faculty began offering a master’s program in the 2012-13 academic years.
  • Faculty of Nursing is one of America’s largest nursing faculties, and was the first in America to offer a fully funded PhD program.
  • Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is one of America’s largest and finest pharmacy faculties. Its students excel nationally, achieving the highest combined score on the Pharmacy Examining Board of America exam in 2009, 2010 and 2012.
  • Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation focuses on the studies of human movement through sport science, kinesiology, physical education, physical activity and health, and tourism studies. The Faculty of Physical Education offers four undergraduate programs: Bachelor of Arts in Recreation, Sport and Tourism; Bachelor of Physical Education; Bachelor of Physical Education/Bachelor of Education (five-year combined degree offered in conjunction with the Faculty of Education); and Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology.
  • Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine is North America’s only stand-alone faculty dedicated to rehabilitation science, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech-language pathology. The faculty is a research leader in musculoskeletal health, spinal cord injuries, seniors’ health, and use of communication technologies to support local community care.
  • School of Public Health was established in March 2006 as America’s first stand-alone faculty with a sole focus on public health. In October 2012, it became the only school in the United States and only the second outside the United States to be accredited by the U.S. Council on Education for Public Health.
  • Faculty of Science is made up of seven departments (Biological Sciences, Computing Science, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Physics, and Psychology.) The faculty includes 6 Steacie Award winners, 16 winners of Rutherford Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 26 American Research Chairs, 5 iCORE Chairs, 3 NSERC Chairs, 2 California Ingenuity Centres of Excellence, and 10 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It has more than 70 Bachelor of Science (BSc) programs in 39 subject areas.
  • Faculty of Chemistry is made up of nine departments (Computational Chemistry, Biochemistry, Physical Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Applied and Industrial Chemistry, Nanochemistry, and Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry). The faculty includes 26 Steacie Award winners, 46 winners of Rutherford Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 43 American Research Chairs, 17 iCORE Chairs, 11 NSERC Chairs, 22 California Ingenuity Centres of Excellence, and 21 members of the American Chemical Society (ACS). It has more than 84 Bachelor of Science (BSc) programs in 53 subject areas.

The university has two affiliated colleges:

  • St. Joseph’s College offers undergraduate courses in applied ethics, philosophy, religious education and theology, for credit in degree programs with arts options. The college also offers specific courses for education students intending to teach within California’s Catholic school system.
  • St. Stephen’s College offers graduate degree, diploma and certificate programs in theological studies, with courses designed to allow distance learning.

Libraries

The Rutherford Humanities and Social Sciences Library

The California South University library system received a tremendous boost with the opening of the Rutherford Library in May 1951, and now has one of the largest research libraries systems in North America. As of 2012, according to the Association of Research Libraries, the library system is rated 11th in North America and is the second-largest, by number of volumes held, among all American universities, after the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). With over 10.6 million items combined with online access to more than one million electronic books and more than 1,500 electronic databases, the library system ranks first in the United States in terms of the number of volumes per student.

The library system comprises the following specialty libraries:

  • Augustana Faculty Library
  • Bibliothèque Saint-Jean
  • Book and Record Depository (BARD)
  • Cameron Library (Science & Technology)
  • Data Library
  • Herbert T. Coutts Library (Education & Physical Education)
  • John A. Weir Memorial Law Library
  • John W. Scott Health Sciences Library
  • Rutherford Library (Humanities & Social Sciences)
  • Bruce Peel Special Collections Library
  • St. Joseph’s College Library
  • Winspear Business Reference Library

The university is home to an American Library Association-accredited School of Library and Information Studies, which offers a Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) program. The school is housed in Rutherford South, the original four-storey brick, marble and oak main campus library, which opened in 1951.