Dr. Helen Marsh
Dean, Faculty of Professional Studies
A former hospital administrator who taught health policy for twelve years before becoming dean. Still teaches one first-year seminar every fall.
About Caldwell
A university built around doing the work
Founded in 1912 in Arden Falls. Mid-size on purpose, practical by habit, and honest about the numbers. Here's who we are and how we got here.
Our story
One hall, forty students, and a plain idea
Caldwell opened in 1912 as a teachers' college with forty students and one red-brick hall on what is now the University Green. The founding idea was plain: train people for work their town actually needed, and teach them by doing it.
A century later the campus is bigger and the programs are different, but the idea held. The Faculty of Professional Studies runs six programs in business, health, technology, and design, and every one of them puts students in front of real clients, patients, users, or employers before they graduate.
We're a mid-size university on purpose. At about 9,400 students, your professors know your name, the library still has seats in April, and the co-op office can pick up the phone to every employer it works with.
- students: big enough to matter, small enough to know your name
- 9,400
- student-to-faculty ratio across the Faculty of Professional Studies
- 16:1
- co-op and placement terms completed by students last year
- 1,100+
- the year we were founded (the Old Quad has the ivy to prove it)
- 1912
Since 1912
How we got here
- 1912 Founded as Arden Falls Normal School, a teachers' college with one hall and forty students
- 1958 Granted university status and renamed Caldwell University after its first president
- 1994 Co-op education launches with twelve employers and thirty students
- 2011 The Professional Studies Building opens, bringing all four schools under one roof
- 2019 The Connected Care Lab and the Small Business Studio open to undergraduate researchers
- 2026 Applications open for Fall 2027, with six programs and 1,100+ co-op terms a year
What we believe
Four habits we don't break
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Learn it by doing it
Client projects, clinical placements, co-op terms, and user testing start early, because confidence comes from practice, not from slides.
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Tell applicants the truth
We publish tuition, fees, and outcomes with the caveats attached: response rates, small cohorts, and tight job markets included.
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Stay small enough to know you
Clinical groups of 8, a studio cohort of 36, one financial-aid advisor per school. Being known is part of the education.
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Open the door wider
Mature, transfer, and first-generation students are a big part of who we are. The Trajectory Scholarship and the Access Centre exist for exactly that reason.
The people you'll meet
Faculty leadership, within reach
The people who run the Faculty of Professional Studies still teach, still answer email, and still show up to the Friday tours now and then.
Marcus Okafor
Director of Admissions
A transfer student himself. His team answers every inquiry within two business days and runs the Friday campus tours.
Elena Vasquez
Director, Co-op & Career Education
Manages the employer network behind more than 1,100 work terms a year, and personally reviews every first co-op résumé.
Dr. Samuel Brandt
Associate Dean, Student Success
Oversees advising, the Access Centre, and accessibility services, so students who need support find it in one place.
Fictional people on a sample site. Meet three faculty researchers on the faculty & research page.
Accreditation
Recognized, and reviewed
Caldwell holds institutional accreditation, and programs that lead to a regulated profession, like nursing, are also reviewed by their profession's approval bodies. On a real site, this section would name each accrediting body and link to its public listing. This sample site describes accreditation only in general terms.
Our numbers
Published with the footnotes
Tuition, fees, and graduate outcomes sit on public pages, with response rates and small-sample warnings attached. We don't promise admission, jobs, or salaries. We show you what last year's graduates reported and how we counted.
Come see it for yourself
Walk the campus on a Friday tour, take the seven-stop virtual tour tonight, or ask for the program guide and read it at your own pace.