Chicago State University

In 1867 in a leaky railroad boxcar, a normal school was formed, Teacher Training School (then renamed Cook County Normal School). Over the next 150 years, this school grew from Chicago Normal School to Chicago Teachers College, and eventually to Chicago State University (CSU).  Up until 1967, there were two branches of Chicago Teachers College:  North Branch and South Branch.  

At Chicago State, we are intentional about designing educational experiences and cultivating partnerships that equip our students with the skills needed to be successful in an ever-transforming job landscape. Through our seventy undergraduate and graduate degree-granting and non-degree programs, and the University’s five colleges—Arts and Sciences, Business, Education, Health Sciences, and Pharmacy, our students continue to demonstrate the transformative power of education through your resilience, dedication to academic excellence, and strong demonstration of integrity.

The mission of the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Research (IER) is to support institutional decision making at Chicago State University by providing leadership and oversight for complex analyses for both academic departments and university administration, and to collaborate with other universities to provide comparative data. IER is a highly collaborative unit and is responsible for creating an environment which promotes the use of institutional data, analysis and research for decision making in keeping with CSU's educational mission.