Baker University

Baker is a private university that educates traditional and nontraditional students through small classes, innovative instructors, and rigorous course work. Fortune 500 CEOs, New York Times best-selling authors, and Super Bowl champions all proudly claim Baker, the first university in Kansas, as their alma mater.

The university is home to four schools: the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Nursing, the School of Education, and the School of Professional and Graduate Studies. Baker offers undergraduate through doctoral programs.

Baker University is a premier private university with a tradition of academic excellence and student engagement in a respectful, inviting, and values-based learning community. The faculty provides creative, student-focused learning experiences that challenge students to analyze issues with depth and clarity. Students fully engage in their learning; connect with peers, faculty, and staff; and develop lifelong relationships with diverse groups of people. Graduates realize their potential to become confident, competent contributors to society.

Students who transfer from large universities marvel at the number of ways to get involved at Baker. Here, our central midfielders ace exams in the morning, write columns for The Baker Orange in the afternoon, and raise money for children’s hospitals with their sorority sisters at night. We’ve seen it. The Office of Student Life provides endless ways to get involved and make friends early in your college career. Baker freshmen can lead student groups—even start their own—the minute their parents pull out of the parking lot. Who said you had to wait your turn?

At Baker University learning takes place both inside and outside the classroom. With more than 75 student activities and organizations from which to choose, you’ll have no trouble finding your place, making friends, and creating a memorable college experience. Learn a little bit about Baker through these photos and videos, but check us out on social to see what it’s like every day for a Baker Wildcat.

Baker strives to create seamless admission processes at each of our four schools through an unwavering commitment to personal attention. At Baker, our enrollment representatives know your financial aid award and your pet’s name. Our deans know your career goals and breakfast order. It’s different here. Baker University builds achievers, doers, and global citizens, ready to tackle the world.

Baker University offers master’s and doctoral degree programs at its regional campuses throughout the Kansas City metro, Topeka, and Wichita and online. Since the early 1990s, Baker’s School of Professional and Graduate Studies has introduced to its community workforce-relevant programs that are known for their value. The School of Education is home to an impressive roster of faculty members with decades of real-world classroom and administrative experience.

Baker University School of Nursing offers both bachelor’s and master’s programs. Our nurses, nursing educators, and nursing administrators are compassionate, dedicated, and confident professionals who have a tremendous impact on the communities in which they serve. Baker builds its nurses at its partner hospital, Stormont Vail Health, in Topeka, Kansas.Although it’s not mandatory, Baker’s School of Nursing encourages prospective students to take their prerequisite courses at the College of Arts and Sciences in Baldwin City—that way, students can enjoy two years of the traditional residential campus experience. Our online Master of Science in Nursing program offers two tracks—nursing education and nursing administration—to prepare graduates to shape the next generation of health care professionals.

Founded in 1858 as the first university in Kansas, Baker is an institution with a storied past. While standing in the center of our beautiful campus in Baldwin City, a person can do a 360-degree turn and see three buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. Lady Margaret Thatcher dedicated our Osborne Chapel, which was moved brick by brick from Sproxton, England. Abraham Lincoln personally donated to the construction of Parmenter Hall. William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States, delivered the first speech on the topic of world peace 100 yards from where our current political scientists study. Given the university’s rich tradition of academic excellence and historical significance—and our immaculate campus, which is a registered arboretum and Tree Campus USA award winner—it’s no surprise that George Will once called Baker University a “Midwestern Hidden Gem.”

Since our founding, Baker has held close ties with the Methodist Episcopal Church, which became the Methodist Church in 1939, and then the United Methodist Church in 1968 and has retained its affiliation. As one of 196 colleges and universities in the United States with connections to the Church, we seek to continue a tradition of devotion to the Christian faith and academic excellence.

A leader known for raising the national and international profiles of educational and nonprofit institutions, Dr. Lynne Murray became the 29th president of Baker University on July 1, 2014. Murray previously served as the vice president for development, international and alumni relations at Washington, D.C.-based Gallaudet University, the world’s only university for deaf and hard of hearing people. For more than 20 years, she has worked collaboratively with community organizations, initiating national and global partnerships and spearheading fundraising efforts.

Upon its inception in 1858, the founders of Baker University deemed that the university be governed by an overseeing body of no more than 32 members. Today, the Baker University Board of Trustees remains the highest governing body of the university, meeting three times annually to approve university programs, budgets, faculty promotions, and conferment of degrees to graduates.