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Academics

Undergraduate and graduate degrees at Austin Peay offer a personalized and flexible experience, tailored to your specific needs. Day, evening and online courses are available across seven academic colleges and schools.

The journey is not an easy one but you won’t have to go it alone. The hard work we put in together makes great things possible.

Succeeding at Austin Peay is a given.

Come with your ambitious goals and dreams. This is the place to transform them into a career that can change the world. We’re happy to help you get there.

Every path to graduation is different and each student is unique. But the thing that remains the same in all student academics is our commitment to bringing you the best educational experience possible. To help you find the best path, we have multiple resources housed in Student Success ready to assist you with resources that best fit your needs in the university.

Our support is just beginning with this guide to map your coursework.

Faculty and staff are committed to your success on and off campus, fostering potential and creating an environment where you can shine and write your own future. The result? Students who excel in research, business, science and the arts.

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50
Bachelor's Degree Programs
21
Master's Degree Programs
2
Doctoral Programs
375
Full-Time Faculty
200+
Specific Areas of Study
23
Professional Accreditations

What can you study?

Austin Peay offers hundreds of degree concentrations from associate and bachelor's degrees all the way to our doctorate of education in educational leadership. Our six academic colleges are equipped with doctoral-trained faculty members housed in state-of-the-art facilities ready to teach you the skills needed to be successful in the professional world.

Student works at desk in Art and Design building
College of Arts and Letters

The College of Arts and Letters provides studies in the areas of art, communication arts, languages, literature, history, music, philosophy, theatre, and dance. Our mission is to promote the humanities as a way of understanding the global culture in which we live.

Expert faculty provide a structured, creative learning environment that enables students to ask questions, solve problems, and take risks as they gain the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for a meaningful and productive life as global citizens.

Check out all the College of Arts and Letters has to offer.

Student runs on treadmill
College of Behavioral and Health Sciences

We seek students who possess a strong willingness to learn and are committed to making a difference in the lives of others. Degree offerings and programs within the CoBHS are designed to provide students with skills necessary to build and sustain a healthy society. We prepare students to enter their communities ready to engage and lead. With appreciation for inclusion, global awareness, and lifelong learning.

Our highly credentialed and experienced faculty will teach you these skills and allow you opportunities to practice your new talents in real life situations. They will work closely with you to develop a program of study mentoring you throughout you academic path.

Check out all the College of Behavioral and Health Sciences has to offer.

Students work in Trading Room
College of Business

The APSU College of Business is a teaching-focused business school committed to student success while serving the Clarksville and Nashville metropolitan areas.

We strive to push students beyond the textbook and help them explore their passions, in order to empower our graduates to compete in a global economy.

Check out all the College of Business has to offer.

Students work in Ready to Teach classroom
Eriksson College of Education

Our departments of Teaching and Learning and Educational Specialties offer undergraduate and graduate degree programs that will give you the training you need to be successful in our classroom and in yours.

Our various Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) programs provide multiple avenues for career changers and college graduates in other disciplines to prepare themselves for their particular niche in the teaching profession. The Doctorate of Educational Leadership will prepare you for a variety of positions from state and district leadership roles to educational research careers.

Check out all the Eriksson College of Education has to offer.

Students conduct research in Sundquist lab
College of STEM

The College of STEM provides study for students in the areas of agriculture, astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, Earth and Environmental Sciences, mathematics, medical laboratory science, radiologic technology, physics, engineering physics, and engineering technology.

Our outstanding, discipline-based programs are student-centered and designed to prepare students for responsible positions at all levels of research, industry, education, medicine, and government. We emphasize degree programs relevant to regional economic and market trends, designed to enable graduates to compete in the global economy and foster lifelong learning skills.

Check out all the CoSTEM has to offer.

Students conduct research in Sundquist lab
College of Graduate Studies

The College of Graduate Studies at Austin Peay State University fosters an intellectual community of advanced learning within an environment of scholarship, research and creative activities, and engages faculty and students with partnerships representative of a global society.

The College of Graduate Studies also develops advanced programs and services addressing national needs and provides a mechanism for collaborative opportunities in research, creative and scholarly activities. These connect university expertise with private and public resources and contribute significantly to the intellectual, economic, social, physical and cultural development of the region and therefore, the nation.

Check out all the College of Graduate Studies has to offer.

 

Dwayne Estes speaks at Grasslands initiative

Dwayne Estes, Ph.D.

Professor of Biology

When Dr. Estes founded the Southeastern Grasslands Initiative, he wanted to lead environmental change. Now, as Tennessee’s Conservationist of the Year, he’s well on his way to restoring some of the world’s most endangered habitats.

“This initiative is an attempt to restore bits and pieces of this ecosystem that we’ve lost over the last 200 years…The explorers who described (southeastern) prairies in the 1790s, they described buffalo and prairie chickens—things we don’t have any more. You have to remember, it was originally grassland for thousands and thousands of years before we got here.”

 

Karen Sorenson poses for photo in her office

Karen Sorenson, Ph.D.

Professor of French

If you want to learn a foreign language (and in today’s global society, you should), then you have to go abroad. At least, that’s what one of the state’s top foreign language professors believes.

“With our study abroad programs, we are giving Austin Peay students a chance to go somewhere else in the world and experience a culture and way of life that’s different from their own. And by giving them immersion-based experiences, they are able to develop skills that they couldn’t earn any other way.”

Cassidy Graves smiling
Cassidy Rose Graves
Class of  2017
Celeste Malone
Celeste Malone
Class of 2019, Graduate Degree in Communication
Joshua Rees
Joshua Rees
Class of 2019
Deborah Gulledge
Deborah Gulledge
Class of 2018, Bachelor of Science in Physics
Cassidy at The Peay Read

 2013 - Honored as a Peay Read creative response winner.

The Browning building were Pr and Marketing offices ate located

2014 - Began work as a Social Media Assistant in Austin Peay State University's PR & Marketing Office.

Cassidy at her own birthday party

2015 - Named a top 10 finalist in the Knoxville Film Festival's 7-Day Shootout.

Cassidy Graves at paint the campus red day

2015 - Worked as a Social Media & Video intern for Austin Peay State University's Office of Alumni Relations.

Cassidy with a disney cap in her hand

 

2017 (outcome) - Landed a Social Media & Communications internship with the Walt Disney Company
Celeste waves in homecoming parade

Nominated to be a part of the homecoming court during 2016 Homecoming celebration.

Stack of The All State copies

Became the Editor-in-Chief of The All State, Austin Peay's student newspaper in fall 2016.

Malone receives award

Received the Meningall Governor's Cup at the April 2017 Student Organization Leader Awards.

Malone sits with other board members

Named to the Austin Peay Board of Trustees beginning in June 2018.

Malone poses for photo before leaving for Twitter internship

Awarded internship at Twitter headquarters for summer 2018.

Earned a job as a staff associate for MP&F Strategic Communications.
Josh poses in Spain

2018 - Studied abroad in Spain.

Josh Rees poses with spanish students

2018 - Helped teach Spanish classes to senior citizens  as a partnership between APSU, the Spanish Honor Society students at Montgomery Central High School and Fieldstone Assisted Living.

Josh poses for group photo with Sigma Delta Pi members

2019 - Josh was inducted as the President of the Sigma Delta Pi National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society.

Joshua Rees

2019 - Josh enrolled in Graduate School at Austin Peay following his May 2019 undergraduate commencement ceremony.

Received a job as a Spanish teacher at Cheatham county high school after his May 2019 graduation ceremony.
Deborah in group photo with Governors School

2012 - Attended the 2012 Governor’s School for Computational Physics at Austin Peay.

Deborah poses in front of Fermilab sign

2015-2018 - Interned at Fermilab during summers from 2015 to 2018 working on calibrations for the Dark Energy Survey.

Deborah poses with telescope in Chile

2017 - Performed observing run in 2017 at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile for the Dark Energy Survey.

Deborah Gulledge poses for photo in observatory

2018 - Awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship during first year of graduate school at Georgia State University.

Deborah poses for photo outside of NASA

2019 - Summer intern for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2019, where she worked on real-time atmospheric corrections for ground-based telescopes.

Traveling to Maui, Hawaii, in fall 2019 to work with Air Force to build a telescope in attempt to measure seismology of gas giant planets.