Abbreviation CUS | Membership 10 | |
Formation 1992; 25 years ago (1992) Purpose Lutheran higher education Headquarters St. Louis, Missouri, United States Parent organization Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod | ||
The Concordia University System (CUS) is an organization of ten colleges and universities in the United States that are operated by the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). All ten institutions are named "Concordia"--a reference to the Latin title of The Book of Concord, the collection of Lutheran confessions--and all include professional church work programs as part of their curricula. The CUS was formed in 1992. As of 2011, 28,421 students attend Concordia University System institutions.
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Each Concordia is independent and has its own president, faculty, and board of regents. At the same time, the ten schools interact with one another and share some resources and services. One service offered by the CUS, the Simultaneous Enrollment Program, allows any student enrolled at one Concordia to attend another CUS college for up to a year as a "visiting student". During that time, visiting students are considered to be enrolled at both CUS institutions simultaneously.
Member institutions
The ten colleges and universities in the Concordia University System are:
Non-member Concordias
There are several educational institutions that are named "Concordia" but are not part of the Concordia University System. For example, neither of the LCMS seminaries (Concordia Seminary and Concordia Theological Seminary) are part of CUS.
The educational institutions of the Lutheran Church–Canada are not part of the CUS even though that church body was originally part of the LCMS and remains associated with it. Those institutions are Concordia University College of Alberta and Concordia Lutheran Seminary, both in Edmonton, and Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary in St. Catherines (which is affiliated with Brock University).
Other Concordias that are affiliated with neither the CUS nor the LCMS include Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and Concordia University in Montreal. For additional universities named Concordia, see Concordia University (disambiguation).