Academic Resources

As UNK’s history museum, the G.W. Frank Museum of History and Culture is dedicated to exploring the culture and history of Kearney through collecting, preserving, and sharing the stories of the many individuals associated with its past. Located in one of Kearney’s most historic properties, a Richardsonian Romanesque mansion built in 1889 by former Kearney residents George W. and Phoebe Frank and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the museum provides educational opportunities through guided tours, exhibits, special programming, artifact collection, and continuous research. It functions as a hands-on learning lab for UNK students and faculty interested in history, museum work, the arts, culture, architecture, engineering, and related disciplines. The Frank Museum serves as a community center by regularly hosting academic presentations, readings, concerts, theatre performances, and workshops, among other cultural programming. The Frank Museum is available to hold UNK classes for a day or a full semester, and larger group tours can be arranged with at least two weeks advance notice.

The museum is customarily open to the public from 1-5 pm, Tuesday-Friday, and noon-5 pm on Saturday, but these hours may vary so please call ahead to schedule your visit. Admission is free and parking is readily available.

Information Technology Services

Information Technology Services provides administrative and academic technology-based services to the campus in addition to infrastructure, security, client services, and enterprise services. Available services include technical assistance and desktop support for faculty and staff; training for faculty, staff and students using a wide variety of computing resources; wired and wireless internet access; hardware and software purchasing assistance; server support; web development, instructional design; and administrative application development.

A variety of platforms support administrative, instructional and research functions for faculty, staff and students. All students have UNK email accounts and Microsoft 365 collaboration and storage environments. The Canvas learning management system is used for online teaching and learning with integrations to Zoom, YuJa (video content), and TurnItIn (plagiarism detection).

Email and printing workstations are maintained in each residence hall. All of the residence halls offer wired and wireless network access to students in each room and across campus including some outdoor wireless connectivity. Three general-purpose computer labs are located in the Calvin T. Ryan Library. General-purpose labs provide access to a standard suite of software with information available here. There are student computer labs, some with Macintosh computers and some with Windows-based computers, located in each of the academic buildings, maintained by individual departments.

Students with disabilities and special needs should contact the Office of Academic Success for information regarding accommodations.

The Help Desk is available to answer questions, resolve problems and provide information about computer use and network services at UNK. Training sessions and hands-on assistance are offered for faculty, staff, and students wishing to learn more about many aspects of technology. The Help Desk is staffed from 8 am to 5 pm on Monday through Friday, and authentication assistance is available 24x7. (See the LoperTECH Help Center link at its.unk.edu).

Two sets of guidelines, the University of Nebraska Policy for Responsible Use of University Computers and Information Systems and Guidelines for the Use of Information Technology Resources at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, apply to faculty, staff and students at UNK.

The role of the University of Nebraska at Kearney Institutional Review Board (IRB) is to protect human subjects who participate in research and to ensure that research conducted by UNK students, faculty, and staff complies with federal regulations and internal policies. The IRB is an independent committee that may be comprised of faculty from a variety of academic divisions, staff, students, individuals with medical expertise, and community members.

The three general ethical principles that underlie the regulations concerning human subject research are: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. These principles guide IRB review of research conducted at UNK or in affiliation with UNK:

Respect for Persons - Prospective participants in research must be given enough information about the nature of the research, what is required of them, and the potential benefits and risks of participating to allow them to make an informed decision about whether or not to participate.

Beneficence - Research involving human subjects must maintain a favorable balance between benefits and risks. Many types of risk must be considered, including physical harm, psychological harm, harm to one's reputation or employment status, and financial harm. In any risk-potential situation, the benefits should outweigh the potential risk. Subjects must be aware of potential risks before consenting to participate in the research.

Justice - Researchers should fairly recruit and select subjects for research participation. Fairness refers to the subjects as individuals as well as to subjects as members of a group based on factors such as age, socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, ability, gender, and so on.

At the individual level, subjects cannot be selected only because they are favored by the researcher or disliked by the researcher (for example, only those failing a class are invited to participate). Additionally, certain groups should not be more burdened than others with being research subjects. On the other hand, groups should not be excluded from research because of prior beliefs or because they are difficult to reach as research subjects.

Depending on the research method and subjects, IRB review is conducted at three levels: exempt, expedited, and full board. Researchers should submit their protocols to the IRB prior to data collection. Researchers also must complete a human subjects protection training program. The link to the training, submission guidelines, and forms for IRB review are available from the IRB website: www.unk.edu/irb.

The Calvin T. Library remains open and available to all users in the midst of a transformational renovation project. The library's homepage, library.unk.edu, provides the most up-to-date information on the status of the library during the renovation, its services, and its collections. The library’s faculty and staff focus on being an integral part of students' careers at UNK and work with campus partners to ensure outstanding academic support for every student, graduate or undergraduate, no matter where they are located. Throughout the year one-on-one reference assistance is available in person and by chat, text, email and telephone, either via drop-in or appointment.

A massive amount of print and online resources remain available to students and community users. Print collections of note include the Archives and Special Collections, which focus on Nebraska history and the history of the university, and the Curriculum Collection, which includes examples of resources used in pre-K through 12th grade, along with the Nebraska Archive of Children’s Literature. Computers are available throughout the library as well as for checkout for up to three days.

Ordinarily, the library houses the UNK Learning Commons, which includes the UNK Writing Center, Subject Tutoring, Success Coaching, group study rooms, and other services and activities focused on student academic success. During the renovation, these services are provided in person at University Residence North. The Library looks forward to welcoming them back in Fall 2024.

The Miriam Drake Theatre is a 334-seat proscenium house with a complete functional fly system and modern sound and lighting systems. The stage house has traps, orchestra pit and all the necessary equipment for full value stage productions. The theatre is located in the Fine Arts Building and is home to theatrical and dance productions throughout the year. This space is a laboratory and performance venue for undergraduate students in theatre, musical theatre and dance. The university productions are open to students, faculty, and the community at large.

The Museum of Nebraska Art is unique among art museums, dedicated exclusively to telling the story of Nebraska through the art of Nebraska. MONA exhibits the work of a distinguished and diverse collection of artists including pieces by Nebraska artists as well as artwork featuring Nebraska subjects by artists from all over the world. A Kearney landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places, MONA provides a fitting home for its collection of over 6,000 works. Located in downtown Kearney, MONA is a regional center for cultural activities where students enjoy opportunities to broaden their academic experiences through their association with the Museum and its collection. Visitors enjoy MONA by attending exhibitions, special educational workshops, lectures, and musical performances. Web and distance education programming provide connections to the Museum beyond central Nebraska as well. With no admission fee and convenient parking, MONA is an artistic treasure readily available to all. For more information, visit MONA's website: mona.unk.edu.

Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic

The Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic is the academic center for the M.S.Ed. degree program in Speech/Language Pathology in the Department of Communication Disorders. It offers a site for the integration of professional coursework with extensive practical experience under direct faculty supervision.

The Speech, Language, Hearing and Ritecare Clinic offers clinical services in consultation, evaluation, and treatment for students, faculty, and the general public. Services are available for both children and adults with communication disorders related to stroke, laryngectomy, cleft palate, brain injury, cerebral palsy, voice, motor speech, cognition, dementia, premature birth, stuttering, hearing loss, articulation, language delay, swallowing, developmental delay, social aspects, autism, second language acquisition, language/literacy/learning disorders, and augmentative and alternative communication needs. The clinics are located at the west end of the College of Education Building. Clients may park in the lot directly off Hwy. 30 by the main doors to the clinic. For more information, please contact the Clinic Coordinator at 308-865-8507 or the Department of Communication Disorders at 308-865-8300.

The Testing Center Site 5108, located in the College of Education Building, 1615 W 24th Street, C 105/C106, provides Computer Based Testing for a wide array of areas. Our Computed Based Testing system delivers both linear exams (all items are presented in order) and adaptive tests (the computer uses the candidate's response to each item to deliver subsequent items) and ends when the computer is able to make a pass/fail determination or email results at a later date.

Computer Based testing is offered year round, Monday through Friday, by appointment only. Study materials are available for certain programs.

The Testing Center services are available to all University of Nebraska students as well as students from surrounding Colleges and the general public.  Telephone number 308-865-8054

The following are among the Computer Based Tests currently available through the Testing Center: