Frequently Used Terms at Concordia University Texas

Academic Advisor /Advising - Professors and university staff members trained to advise you on academic issues, such as developing a degree plan and deciding which classes to take. At Concordia, you have two advisors: one faculty member and one staff member. Your faculty advisor will be a professor who teaches in your major. Your staff advisor will be a Student Central member specializing in working with the students majoring in your discipline. Always consult with your academic advisors before registering for classes to ensure you are taking the appropriate courses and taking them in the proper order. Consulting with your advisors can save you time, effort, and money by avoiding classes you may not need to take.

Academic Probation - A student status assigned when the required minimum grade point average (GPA) in a program, major, or the university is not met. If academic probation persists for several semesters, students must receive approval from the administration before registering for additional classes.

Academic Year - The annual period in which educational institutions offer classes. Typically, academic years begin in the summer (e.g., July 1) and end the following summer (e.g., June 30). Concordia divides its academic year into three semesters: Fall Semester (Aug - Dec ), Spring Semester (Jan - April), and Summer Semester (May - July).

Accredited - To maintain the quality of its programs and curriculum, universities are members of a regional body that rigorously reviews them every five and ten years. To pass this review, it is to be accredited. Only accredited schools may transfer credits to or receive transfer credits from other accredited schools. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accredits Concordia.

Adjunct Faculty - Part-time faculty members the university hires to teach. They are sometimes called “adjuncts,” for short, or “adjunct professors.”

ABSN – Acronym for Accelerated Bachelor of Science Nursing program located at a second Austin Location.

Alumni – Students who’ve graduated from a university. Also the name of one of a residential hall.

Appeal – The action you take when dissatisfied with a sanction, or outcome/decision.

Audit - To register for and attend a class to learn and gain knowledge. You have no responsibility for completing assignments, nor will you receive credit for taking the course.

Bachelor’s Degree - A four-year degree earned at the undergraduate level. You can earn a Bachelor’s Degree in the Sciences (Bachelor of Science or B.S.) or the Arts (Bachelor of Arts or B.A.). A Bachelor’s Degree is required to enter Master’s and Doctoral degree programs.

Blackboard - This is Concordia’s student learning management system (LMS). This computer interface will contain all your courses and their details (such as assignment deadlines, attendance, evaluation, etc.).

Board of Regents - The group of 18 men and women who hold final responsibility for Concordia’s fiscal stability and success as a university. The Board of Regents meets quarterly. They are sometimes called just “Regents,” not to be confused with the residence hall, Regents.

Campus - The property and buildings owned by the university.

Campus Climate - An event that affects many persons; an event that sways the campus in a greatly positive or greatly negative way.

Campus Ministry - Organized ministries, worship, bible studies, service, and spiritual care provided to students while away from home and their home church. Here is the webpage for Concordia University Campus Ministry.

Campus Pastor - A spiritual leader at a university or college. Often, they will lead the campus ministry program on a campus.

Career Services - An office at Concordia that offers resources and counsel for getting internships, searching for and finding meaningful work, preparing for interviews, and creating resumes.

CBA - An abbreviation meaning “course by arrangement.” Sometimes, you might need to take a course to complete your degree plan, but the institution does not offer that course in the semester you need it. In an emergency, courses by arrangement allow you to meet one-on-one or in a small group with a professor to complete a course.

Cedel Hall - A second name for Building C, named in honor of former Concordia president Dr. Tom Cedel who served from 2001-201? (years).

Chapel - A tri-weekly gathering of campus students, staff, and faculty for encouragement, singing, and prayer. Chapel meets each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10:00-10:30 am. “Chapel” also refers to the physical auditorium in Building A.

Co-curricular Activities - Learning activities in which you participate outside the official academic curriculum, such as sports, clubs, etc. Literally means “alongside the curriculum.”

Coed - Consisting of both men and women. In higher education, the term refers to universities that accept men and women, and to residence halls where men and women live in the same building.

College - A learning institution that only offers undergraduate degrees. Current usage has changed, however, to mean any university or institution of higher education. A college may also refer to an academic subdivision within a university, such as the College of Business or the College of Nursing.

Commencement - Also called graduation. The ceremony at the end of a semester in which the university publicly grants your degree and celebrates your having earned it. It is called commencement because your degree signifies your readiness to commence, or begin, your journey of life-long learning on your own. Commencement gets its name from your readiness to commence or start your life’s journey.

Concordia Distinctive Courses - Four required courses that every Concordia student must take at Concordia University (they can’t be transferred in). These unique courses intend to introduce you to the Christian faith identity of the university, and to the mission of empowering students of all backgrounds to lead lives of critical thought, compassionate action, and courageous leadership, preparing leaders for lives of service. The four distinct courses are Life and Leadership, Old Testament, New Testament, and Leadership Theory and Practice. Concordia is not alone in this requirement. Other universities have similar courses unique only to them and their purposes.

Concordia Hub – The new Concordia Radar (2023) where students go to get connected to activities on campus.

Core Curriculum - Also known as “Gen. Ed.” or General Education coursework. Courses that all students at the university must take, regardless of their major, to earn their degree. Professors have designed the Core Curriculum to give you a broad-based education in various subject areas and competencies like history, the fine arts, language arts, the sciences, leadership, religion, mathematics, psychology, and sociology.

Course - A scheduled weekly class you take in a semester in a particular area of study.

Course Load - The number of courses or credit hours you take in a semester.

Credit / Credit Hour - A unit of measure for each class you successfully pass. Typically, you earn one credit hour when you attend a class for one hour per week in a 15-week semester. If your class is three credits, you attend a class for three hours per week in a 15-week semester. To earn your degree at Concordia, you must successfully complete at least 120 credit hours of class.

CRN - An abbreviation meaning “course registration number.” A unique number assigned to each course so that you can be assured of having registered for the correct class. CRNs eliminate confusion because numerous sections of the same class are often offered in any given semester.

Curriculum - The whole collection of courses, approved and developed by the university faculty, that you must complete to get your degree.

CTX - An abbreviation meaning “Concordia University Texas.”

Dean - A leader and manager of an area or division at a university. Multiple people can hold the title of dean because managing the university’s work is diverse. Concordia has two deans, the Dean of Students and the Dean of Teaching and Learning.

Degree - The title you earn when you successfully complete a specified course of studies. In higher education, there are four basic ranks of degrees in ascending order of work and time. The Associate’s (two-year) and Bachelor’s (four-year) degrees are undergraduate degrees; the Master’s and the doctoral are graduate degrees.

Degree Plan - A mapped-out plan of the sequence of classes you must take to earn your degree. A degree plan helps reduce stress and often saves you money by ensuring that the required courses you need are not missed.

Degree Works - A powerful computer interface that allows you to see the status of your degree completion, providing you essential information such as classes completed, classes transferred in, classes in progress, classes needed to complete your degree, grades, cumulative grade point averages, advisor names, and even models to project what courses you would need to take if you changed your major.

Department - An academic unit of the university made up of faculty who teach a common subject such as mathematics, biology, communication, sociology, business, etc.

Discipline - A field of study. Each professor at the university has earned a degree in a specific academic field, for example, theology, nursing, psychology, criminal justice, etc.

Doctorate - The highest degree you can earn in a discipline.

Double Major - An independent plan or a program of study that allows you to earn two majors simultaneously.

Drop a class - To officially withdraw from a class. Sometimes, after registering, students decide they do not want to take a particular course. There can be a variety of reasons for this. To ensure you get a refund, you must officially withdraw or drop the class by the designated withdrawal date by going to Student Central. Be sure to consult with your advisors before dropping a class so that you know the consequences that might impact you.

Early Alert – A system where students, faculty, staff, or parents can complete an online form to communicate/notify the school of an issue that needs to be addressed (for example, mental health issues, academic issues, behavioral issues, residential issues, campus climate issues). These reports can be submitted anonymously. All reports are managed by a group of trained staff. The person who reports may sometimes not hear back from the team, but know that all reports are addressed with care, discipline, or proper attention.

Electives - Courses that the university does not require you to take for your degree. In some degree plans, options exist for you to take elective courses in subject areas that are interesting to you. In addition, sometimes you complete all the coursework in your major yet need elective credit hours to graduate.

Extension - A change a professor makes in the deadline of a class assignment to later than is stated on the syllabus, usually due to unique classroom circumstances (e.g., missed class days due to inclement weather) or unique individual events (e.g., extended illness). Some professors give extensions; others do not so check with your professor before you need one.

Faculty - Any full-time or part-time instructor you have for a course at the university. This term can also refer collectively to all the full-time faculty members at the university.

FAFSA - An acronym for the “Free Application for Federal Student Aid” form, an official federal form that every student, or parent/guardian, must fill out indicating their financial status. This form determines your financial need so that the university can decide on your financial aid package of grants and loans.

Fees - Extra financial charges beyond tuition. Fees help pay for classes that cost more to provide, such as private music lessons or equipment fees in science classes.

Financial Aid or Financial Aid Package - The assistance given to students by the university in the form of scholarships, grants, work-study help, and loans.

Final Exam Week (sometimes shortened to “Finals Week” or “Finals”) - This refers to the last week of the fall and spring semesters, set aside for the specific purpose of taking the concluding exams (also known as “finals” or “final exams”) of your classes. Professors have different ways of giving final exams, but exams are often comprehensive, covering material taught from the whole semester. The tradition of final exam weeks in higher education was designed to give students more time to study, thus ensuring better learning.

FLUNCH - A monthly free lunch for commuter students sponsored by the Director of Student Life. Details are posted on the monthly Calendar.

Founders – The name of a residential building on campus.

Freshman - Now called “First-Year” to be gender inclusive. A term referring to anyone who is in their first two semesters of taking classes at a university.

Grade Point Average - Also called “GPA.” The cumulative average of all your earned grades at the university. Grades are assigned numerical values: A=4.0, B=3.0, C=2.0, D=1.0, and F=0.0. At the conclusion of a class, the computer gives you a number corresponding to the grade you earned. All numerical values of your grades averaged together is your GPA.

Graduate - Any person who has earned a college degree. Students enrolled in a graduate degree program are enrolled in either a Master’s or doctoral program because you have to have a bachelor’s degree to enter those programs.

Higher Education - A general reference to any education system designed for earning degrees after high school.

Incomplete - A type of ‘grade’ assigned when a student cannot complete a course within the semester due to severe illness or other significant issues. Incompletes allow students to complete course assignments after the course has ended. Incompletes last only one semester. Incompletes are infrequently offered, but when they are, students must receive approval before the semester’s end from both the professor and the administration.

Intramural Sports - Sporting competitions organized for non-athletes. Intramurals (or Ims) allow you to play a sport you enjoy without having to be accepted on an official university team.

Junior - A term referring to anyone in their fifth and sixth semesters of taking classes at a university.

Liberal Arts - A reference to the traditional university disciplines of the sciences (e.g., mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics), the humanities (e.g., language arts, religion, history, philosophy, communication, sociology, and psychology), and the fine arts (e.g., music, art, theatre).

Life and Leadership - Required of all students new to Concordia, this one-credit hour class teaches the fundamentals of self-leadership necessary for success in the university and life. Transfer students to CTX take a similar but shortened course called “Life and Leadership Transfer.”

LCMS - An abbreviation for “The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod,” the church body with whom Concordia is affiliated. The LCMS stands in the Lutheran theological tradition.

LMS - Learning Management System. The learning interface on the web that you use for all your classes. At Concordia, we use Blackboard.

Lutheran - One of the Protestant traditions in Christianity inspired by the teachings of Martin Luther who

provoked the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The central belief of Lutheranism is that humanity is brought back into a relationship with God, not by our human efforts, but by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Lutheran Learning Model - An approach methodology, hermeneutic, the lens to teaching and learning used at Concordia utilizing the Lutheran tradition’s key spiritual themes (vocation, theology of the cross, sovereignty and humility, freedom, two kingdoms). Sometimes referred to as Lutheran ethos and Lutheran identity. See the booklet, “Here I Learn in order to Lead.”

M.A. and M.S. - The abbreviations for the Master of Arts degree and the Master of Science degree.

Major - An official set of about 10-12 courses in a discipline or focus area you must take to graduate. Universities and colleges require students to choose a specific academic discipline or focus area in which to become an expert.

Minor - An official set of six courses in a discipline or focus area that you need to take to graduate. Universities and colleges do not require students to choose a minor. Often students desire to expand their expertise beyond their major.

Office Hours - Officially posted hours in the syllabus in which your professor is available to meet with you. Some professors are pleased to meet with you outside of office hours with an appointment.

The mission of Concordia University Texas - Concordia University Texas empowers students of all backgrounds to lead lives of critical thought, compassionate action, and courageous leadership. As a liberal arts university rooted in the Lutheran tradition and affiliated with The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Concordia develops the mind, heart, soul, and body, preparing leaders for lives of service.

Nature Preserve - A legally protected area in nature in which plants and animals are allowed to thrive with minimal human interference. A large portion of Concordia’s campus is on a nature preserve, for which Concordia is responsible for its caretaking.

On-Ground, Online, and Hybrid Classes - On-ground classes are taught in person on the campuses of Concordia University. Online courses are taught entirely through the web using various computer tools and processes. Hybrid courses contain a mixture of online and on-ground settings for teaching and learning.

Plagiarism - Stealing, copying, or cutting and pasting someone else’s words on a paper without giving a proper citation or source from which you took the wording. Consequences for plagiarism can mean failure of an assignment or even the class. A detailed definition can be found here.

Ph.D. - The abbreviation for Doctor of Philosophy.

Pass-Fail - A course that evaluates students on a pass-fail basis rather than the standard A-F grading system.

President - The head of the university who is responsible for all the university’s work. The president reports to the Board of Regents.

Professor - The title of anyone who teaches at the university level. Technically, the title is only used for those instructors who have earned a doctorate; however, at Concordia, the title is used for any instructor.

Professional Degree Programs - Refers to disciplines not traditionally included in the liberal arts, such as business, nursing, education, and computer sciences.

Provost - While duties can vary, this person is responsible for all academic operations at a university. In some circumstances, the provost is also responsible for admissions, recruitment, and student life.

Registration - The process of officially enrolling in coursework and paying for it. Schools open up registration in the middle of the semester to allow you to register for classes in the subsequent semester. Those who are closer to graduating, and need specific courses, are given priority and may register before those who are further away from graduating.

RA - An abbreviation meaning “Resident Assistant.” This is usually a student hired by the university to serve and assist students who live in the residence halls.

Regents Hall - One of the two residence halls at Concordia.

Residence Hall - A building for full-time students to live and sleep on campus, avoiding the necessity of commuting to and from the university each day. Residence halls are also places for students to gather to study, eat, play, rest, and participate in activities. Many have cooking implements, washers, driers, and recreation areas. They were formerly known as dorms or dormitories.

Sanction – A consequence given by a Dean to help a student remember the rules of the university.

Semester - An academic time period equivalent to 15 weeks in which classes occur at the university. There are three semesters each year: fall, spring, and summer. Most classes meet the full fifteen weeks; other classes, typically online, last eight weeks.

Senior -A term referring to anyone in their last two semesters of taking classes at a university.

Sophomore - A term referring to anyone in their third and fourth semesters of taking classes at a university.

Student Central - Located on the second floor of Building C, this is the place to begin when you have any questions about registration, financial aid, adding and dropping courses, graduation, etc. It is meant to be a “one-stop shop” consolidated in one location for your convenience.

Title IX / Title 9 - A federal law requiring reporting any felt, observed, or overheard gender discrimination or harassment in the workplace or school.

Toilet Paper Times – A monthly newsletter posted in the stalls and bathrooms of CTX buildings where students can find upcoming events on the calendar.

Tornado Tuesdays – A monthly event where students can get free snacks (sometimes ice cream/popsicles) to help them make it through the day.

Tornados - The official nickname of the sports teams of Concordia Texas.

Transcript - This is the official and legal record of the classes you have taken at the university and the grades you earned in those classes. Each university you attend creates its own transcript for each student and degree.

Transfer Student - Students who enter one university after attending another higher-education institution.

Tuition - Refers to the amount of money you are charged to attend classes for a given semester.

Undecided - A reference to students who have not yet decided on their major or degree program. While you will ultimately have to decide on a major by your Junior year, students can often use the first two years to explore options while undecided.

Undergraduate - Any university student who has not yet graduated with a college degree.

Vortex- The Concordia University mascot. Meet Vortex

Wait List - A list of students waiting to get into a class. When you register for classes, you may not get into the course you desire because the class is full. When that happens, Student Central puts you on a wait list so that if a registered student decides to drop the course, those on the wait list may get into the class on a first-come, first-serve order.

Work Study - A federal financial aid program that allows the university to create jobs in which you are paid wages to help you pay for tuition. Your hourly wage is funded partly by the federal government and partly by the university.

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Note: I used the following URL to help with this page: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/08/15/us-higher-education-glossary