Pacific was founded in 1849 as a place to provide educational opportunities to children who had been orphaned along the Oregon Trail or abandoned when their parents joined the California gold rush. Since our beginning, we continue to embrace that commitment to service and meeting the needs of our students. As a result we are a warm, inclusive university with talented and approachable faculty members.

Our locations offer the best of many worlds, combining the vibrant metropolitan life of nearby Portland, the security and beauty of the small city of Forest Grove, the rich milieu of health care and technology in Hillsboro, and the educational opportunities of Eugene. As a small, private university with a blend of liberal arts, education and health care, our 3,000 students collaborate with faculty, staff and fellow students in small class learning environments carefully designed to help students realize their amazing potential.

As a tier one undergraduate university, we offer a variety of majors—literally anthropology to world languages. We encourage our students to engage in interactive learning through research, community service, internships, and global education. Our students enjoy small class sizes, allowing high quality collaborations with our engaged and engaging faculty—who continually receive high marks from students for excellence in teaching. One measure of the effectiveness of these interactions—Pacific University is second among national universities of our size for being awarded Fulbright Fellowships, one of the most prestigious fellowships for undergraduates.

Our graduate programs in education, optometry and the health sciences are nationally accredited and recognized. Student in our clinical programs are trained in the same manner they will practice—in a co-managed, cross-disciplinary format. Whether in dental science or pharmacy, our faculty and students are recognized as leaders in community service and for their exceptional professional abilities. The connectivity between our undergraduate and graduate programs through our Pathways and Advantages Programs are national models for educational preparation.