Academic Resources

The Academic Success Offices (ASO) promote equitable access to higher education for UNK students through individualized, holistic, proactive support and advocacy. Members of the ASO staff help students navigate barriers to achieve academic success and make progress towards graduation. Resources in the department include a federal TRIO-Student Support Services program, Disability Services for Students, the Kearney Bound Scholars program, and support for first-generation students. ASO encourages students to take advantage of the services available to them. In doing so, students can accomplish their academic goals, build connections with a diverse group of peers and staff, and develop skills needed for lifelong success.

UNK has been meeting the educational needs of nontraditional, off-campus students for more than three decades by offering high-quality, affordable online programs. UNK students who complete online degree programs and courses are offered the same valuable instruction as those who complete degree programs and courses on-campus. Online courses are taught by credentialed faculty with real-world experience. UNK provides a wide range of resources to the campus community to support and develop online and blended courses. These include training for online faculty, course consultations, test proctoring, student-centered resources, and video-related resources. UNK supports online learning spaces designed to encourage interaction and engagement among students and provide faculty with flexible video-capable options for class lectures and tutorials. 

UNK closely monitors and evaluates the latest trends and resource developments to advance UNK's online and blended course offerings to stay competitive in the marketplace. To view UNK's online programs, courses, and resources, go to UNK Online.

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, located in Warner Hall 2137, 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 Helpdesk 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 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.

These facilities are operated by the Department of Physics and Astronomy. They exist for three reasons:

1. to be used in the teaching of classes for both astronomy/astrophysics majors and the general student body,
2. to be used for research, and
3. to be used as outreach tools to provide astronomy education to Kearney and the surrounding areas.

The UNK Planetarium is a modern star theater. The lobby of the planetarium features Nebraska's only Foucault Pendulum. The pendulum provides a visual demonstration that the Earth rotates on its axis, as first used by Jean Bernard Leon Foucault at the Paris Observatory in 1851. The Zeiss ZKP4 projector provides a realistic view of the night sky, with the ability to move through time and move around the globe at will. Monthly scheduled shows are provided for the general public. The theater is also in frequent use providing shows for regional school classes and other public groups. Of course the theater is also used in teaching various science classes. The planetarium is handicap accessible.

The UNK Observatory is located on the roof of Bruner Hall. The roll-off roof installation provides access to the skies for the Meade 14” Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope, as well as various smaller telescopes. The observatory provides imaging, photometry, and spectroscopy capabilities that can be used for research, teaching, and outreach. The observatory's location on the roof means that it is not handicap accessible.

Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic

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

The Speech, Langauge, Hearing and Ritecare Clinics offer 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, head injury, cerebral palsy, voice disorders, premature birth, stuttering, hearing loss, articulation, cochlear mapping, language delay, swallowing, developmental delay, second language acquisition, language and learning disorders, 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, located in College of Education Building, provides Computer Based Testing for a wide array of areas. Our Computer 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).

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.

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

The Walker Art Gallery is dedicated to serving the students, faculty and staff of the Department of Art and Art History, the University campus community and the Kearney region, by presenting exhibitions of accomplished visual expression. Two such exhibitions are presented each academic year, drawn from regional as well as national sources. Each of these exhibitions is selected for its educational and inspirational value to the students, as well as artistic merit and intent. As a rule, exhibiting artists and designers lecture on their work, or offer gallery talks. In addition, one half of the standing permanent art faculty exhibits new work each year on a rotating basis.

The Walker Art Gallery devotes over half of its exhibition schedule to the UNK art students. There is an annual exhibition of student work deemed exceptional by the art faculty, and a series, each semester, of capstone senior exhibitions. The students are given the primary responsibility for the installation and deinstallation of their exhibitions, thus gaining invaluable practicum experience.