What's Walden University all about?

Walden is an institution of Higher Learning that transforms student’s ideas of what learning is. It is a place that empowers students to not only acquire the knowledge they seek but to find ways to apply it so that they may impact their immediate environments. The university is now 40 yrs old and has successfully succeeded in becoming the industry leader in online education. They view their student professionals as not just people who work, but work to make a difference.

1969 Harold “Bud” Hodgkinson, a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley, publishes “Walden U.: A Working Paper” in the journal Soundings. The article critiqued the higher education system and initiated the concept of a university that was truly student-centered.

1970 Walden is founded by two New York teachers, Bernie and Rita Turner, who sought a way for adults in the workforce to pursue doctoral degrees and develop into leaders committed to the betterment of society.

1979 The Minnesota Higher Education Coordinating Board approves Walden’s request for licensure. Walden is allowed to grant Ph.D.s and Ed.D.s in Minnesota.

2000 Walden becomes the first distance-learning university to be categorized “research intensive” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Walden’s first dean, Harold “Bud” Hodgkinson, and Frank Dilley, a longtime faculty and board member, receive honorary doctorates.

Mission - Walden University provides a diverse community of career professionals with the opportunity to transform themselves as scholar-practitioners so that they can effect positive social change.

Vision - Walden University envisions a distinctively different 21st-century learning community where knowledge is judged worthy to the degree that it can be applied by its graduates to the immediate solutions of critical societal challenges, thereby advancing the greater global good.


And Walden Univesirty's signature is the Knowledge Area Module or KAM which is broken down into three parts the Breadth - focus is on past research, Depth - present research, and Application - how you'll use what you've researched and actively pursue "social change" Walden is a research intensive university that really focuses on applying what you've learned, this will be clearly evident in each potential course you take here.