University of Missouri--St. Louis

School mission (as provided by the school):

The University of Missouri-St. Louis provides excellent learning experiences and leadership opportunities for a diverse student body through its outstanding faculty, ranked programs, innovative research and regional, national and international partnerships. Founded in 1963 on the grounds of a former country club, UMSL today is spread across 350 acres of rolling hills in suburban St. Louis County adjacent to two Interstate highways and five minutes from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. The campus has 70 academic and general-purpose buildings as well as a variety of student residence halls, condominiums and apartments. UMSL has developed a business park that houses the world headquarters of Express Scripts Inc., and operates two business incubators concentrating on life sciences and information technology. UMSL employs more than 1,100 full-time and part-time teaching and research faculty members. More than 96 percent of tenure and tenure-track faculty hold doctoral or terminal degrees in their respective fields and edit or have articles routinely published in a variety of nationally renowned academic journals. Several of the university's 93 degree programs have attained national recognition for quality, including biology, criminology, education, information systems, international business, nursing, optometry, psychology, public policy and tropical ecology. The largest university in the region, UMSL enrolls more than 16,800 students from 49 states and 62 countries, with 40,000 additional students in non-credit continuing education programs. Nearly 1,000 students live on campus and 165 students participate in one of 11 NCAA Division II sports programs. While UMSL graduates have taken leadership roles nationally and internationally, their influence remains centered in the St. Louis region. More than 75 percent of UMSL's 80,000 graduates still live and work in the region, supporting the unofficial campus tag line "We Educate St. Louis."
Selected Points of Pride
* UMSL is ranked 14th nationally in a survey of "Best College and University Civic Partnerships." The survey measures economic, social and cultural impact on metro regions.
* UMSL was one of 115 colleges and universities selected by the Carnegie Foundation for the foundation's 2010 Community Engagement Classification.
* UMSL received a TOP 50 Award from the St. Louis Regional Commerce & Growth Association for its contributions in "shaping the future of St. Louis."
* The Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice is ranked second nationally by the Journal of Criminal Justice for scholarly research and fourth nationally by U.S. News & World Report for the department's doctoral program.
* The International Business program at UMSL was ranked 20th nationally by U.S. News & World Report in 2010 - its eighth year in the top 20.
* Five UMSL programs are ranked among the top 20 nationally in the Academic Analytics Faculty Productivity Index. They are: counselor education, information systems, criminology, evolutionary biology and teaching and learning.
* UMSL optometry students earned a 98 percent pass rate for the three phases of the national licensure exam. The national average is 95 percent.
* The Whitney Harris World Ecology Center at UMSL is the nation's largest and most diverse program in biology conservation. Academic and research partners include the Missouri Botanical Garden and Saint Louis Zoo.
* Since its first Fulbright Scholar, graduate student William Maltby in 1966, UMSL has had 34 faculty members and 23 students earn Fulbright Scholarships. Women have earned 32 percent of the faculty Fulbrights and 65 percent of the student Fulbrights.
* Graduates of the doctoral program in clinical psychology consistently score in the top 15 percent on the national licensure exam.