Biola University

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Biola University
Motto Above All Give Glory to God
Established February 25, 1908
Type Private
Religious affiliation Non-denominational, Evangelical Christian
Endowment $74.4 million[2]
President Barry H. Corey, Ph.D
Provost David Nystrom
Academic staff 900
Undergraduates 4,106
Postgraduates 1,995
Location La Mirada, CA, USA
Campus Suburban, 96 acres (39 ha)
Athletics 17 varsity teams, called Eagles
Colors Pantone 186 (Red), Black and White             
Mascot Eagle
Affiliations CCCU
GSAC
Website www.biola.edu

Biola University is a private, evangelical Christian, liberal arts university located in La Mirada, in the U.S. state of California.

History

Biola's former Los Angeles building: under construction (top) and complete in 1916 (bottom). It was demolished in 1988, after damage in a 1987 earthquake.[1]

Biola University was founded in 1908 as the Bible Institute Of Los Angeles by Lyman Stewart, president of the Union Oil Company of California (subsequently known as Unocal and later purchased by the Chevron Corporation), Thomas C. Horton, a Presbyterian minister and Christian author, and Augustus B. Prichard, also a Presbyterian minister.[3][4][5]

In 1912, the school appointed R. A. Torrey as dean, and in 1913 began construction on a new building at the corner of Sixth and Hope St., in downtown Los Angeles, which included a 3,500-seat auditorium, two large neon signs on top of the building proclaiming "Jesus Saves", and a set of eleven bells on which hymns were played three times each day.[1][3][6][7] These early leaders wanted the school to focus on the training of students in the Bible and missions, rather than a broad approach to Christian education that was typical of most Christian liberal arts colleges. The Institute offered a diploma after completion of a two-year curriculum. This model was based largely on the Moody Bible Institute.[8] Beginning in the 1920s, attempts were made to broaden the curriculum,[9] but it was not until 1949 that the institution took the name "Biola College" and 1981 when it was renamed "Biola University". Biola re-located to La Mirada, California in 1959.[1][3][6][10]

In 1915 Torrey announced plans to organize an independent church that would meet in Biola's auditorium called the Church of the Open Door. This decision proved controversial with local Presbyterian and Baptist clergy.[11]

In 1917, the Institute published a four-volume version of The Fundamentals: A Testimony To The Truth (a series of essays affirming conservative Protestant beliefs), edited by Torrey and others, with funds donated by Lyman Stewart and his brother Milton.[12][13]

Lyman Stewart died on September 28, 1923, and ten months later, Reuben Torrey resigned as dean. The school appointed Joseph Irvine as President, and on April 3, 1925, appointed John Murdoch MacInnis as the school's second dean. MacInnis was a Presbyterian minister who had only been an instructor at the school for about two years. MacInnis served as dean until his forced resignation on December 31, 1928. His administration was turbulent and suffered from leadership conflicts and religious controversy.[14] In 1927, Biola published a book by MacInnis entitled "Peter the Fisherman Philosopher". This book became the focus of an intense national controversy, in which MacInnis was accused by Fundamentalists of advocating liberal theological positions contrary to Biola's standards.[15][16] Eventually MacInnis was forced to resign effective December 31, 1928, and all the remaining copies of the book along with the printing plates were destroyed.[17]

In 1929 Charles E. Fuller a businessman and evangelist and graduate of Biola, was drafted as vice president to find a new dean and a president. Elbert McCreery and William P. White, both associated with Moody Bible Institute, were chosen to fill these posts.[18]

During the Great Depression, the Institute suffered serious financial difficulties.[6] In 1932, Louis T. Talbot, pastor of the Church of the Open Door, assumed the presidency and helped raise much-needed funds.[6] During the next two decades, Talbot led a shift away from missions, instead concentrating on academic programs.[6] Talbot Theological Seminary became Biola's first graduate school, and in 1977, Biola acquired the graduate programs of Rosemead Graduate School of Professional Psychology and relocated them to the La Mirada campus.[6] Biola added a School of Business in 1993.[6]

Theology

Biola University is officially non-denominational, but the most represented denominations at the university are Baptist and Evangelical Free. Biola is well known for its conservative evangelical doctrine, while many other evangelical schools identify as either moderate or liberal. The vast majority of students and faculty identify themselves as evangelical, but Biola students and faculty hold to myriad perspectives within the overall schema of Protestant orthodoxy. Biola holds to the key doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, the idea that the original writings of the Bible were without error with regard to both theological and non-theological matters. As a final guarantee of strict adherence to its theological worldview, the university requires every faculty member, when first hired and again upon application for tenure, to submit their understanding of and complete agreement with each item of the doctrinal and teaching statements to the Talbot School of Theology for evaluation.

Conferences

"The Word", mural by Kent Twitchell.

Biola holds two annual student conferences, the Missions Conference during the spring semester and the Torrey Memorial Bible Conference during the fall semester.[citation needed]

The Missions Conference is the largest annual missions conference and the second largest missions conference in the world, second only to the tri-annual Urbana Missions Conference. It is a three-day student-run event that is intended to inspire students towards missionary activity and provide information about missionary work. Classes are canceled Wednesday through Friday in the middle of spring semester to accommodate this. The conference offers ethnic meals, cultural awareness field trips, on-campus cultural experiences, and interaction with missionaries.[19]

The Torrey Memorial Bible Conference is also a three-day conference dedicated to students' spiritual growth. Every year a specific topic is chosen that is geared towards the typical college student's spiritual needs.[citation needed]

The annual one-day Biola Media Conference seeks to advance the integration of faith and the arts. It brings together Christian media leaders and other Christians for education, inspiration, and networking.[20]

On November 16, 1996, the university hosted the first national conference on intelligent design. Later, Intervarsity Press published Mere Creation (ISBN 0-8308-1515-5), a collection of the papers presented at the conference. Subsequent intelligent design conferences were held at the University in 2002 and 2004.[citation needed]

On October 3, 2009, Biola sponsored the first ever Film Music Guild Conference (known as the FMG Conference 2009), a project intended to bring students from film and music schools in Los Angeles together to learn from top industry professionals. It is the only conference in the world designed to bring together student filmmakers and student composers for discussion.[citation needed]

Since 2011, Biola requires students to attend 8 conference sessions and 30 chapel services per semester, or face a financial penalty.[21]

Messianic Jewish Studies

On October 8, 2007, Biola opened the Charles L. Feinberg Center for Messianic Jewish Studies in Manhattan. The Center offers a Masters in Divinity in Messianic Jewish Studies. The program, which is in cooperation with Chosen People Ministries, focuses on the education and training of leaders in the Messianic Jewish community.[22]

Organization

Colleges and schools

Biola offers 37 undergraduate majors and 145 professional fields of study, as well as master's, doctoral, and professional degrees. Degrees include B.A., B.S., B.M., B.F.A, M.A., M.B.A., M.Div., Th.M., D.Min., D.Miss., Psy.D., Ed.D., and Ph.D. All are regionally and professionally accredited and are integrated with evangelical Christian doctrine.[citation needed]

Lecture hall at Biola University in La Mirada, California

The schools are:

  • Crowell School of Business
  • Rosemead School of Psychology
  • School of Arts and Sciences
  • School of Education
  • Cook School of Intercultural Studies
  • Talbot School of Theology

Torrey Honors Institute is a Christian great books program started by Dr. John Mark Reynolds in 1995[23] and named after Reuben Archer Torrey.[24] Classes in the department are used to meet most of the general education requirements at Biola University in four years (the program does not offer a major or minor). The Torrey Honors Institute is patterned after Oxford's tutorial system, employing reading, discussion, writing, mentoring, and lectures among other opportunities.[25] The goal of the department is to "equip men and women to pursue truth, goodness and beauty in intellectual and spiritual community, enabling them to be strong Christian leaders"[26]

All undergraduate students are required to take 30 units of Bible classes, regardless of their major, resulting in a minor in theological and Biblical studies. The mission of Biola University is "biblically centered education, scholarship, and service — equipping men and women in mind and character to impact the world for the Lord Jesus Christ."[27]

In its 2013 college rankings, U.S. News & World Report ranked Biola in its "Best National Universities" category,[28] ranking Biola 174 out of 281 National Universities.[29] Biola was also listed as one of America’s 19 “up and coming” national universities by U.S. News.[30]

Founders

  • Lyman Stewart, President and Benefactor[31]
  • Thomas. C. Horton, Superintendent[31]

Presidents

  • William P. White, 1st president (1929–1932)
  • Louis T. Talbot, 2nd and 4th president (1932–1935, 1938–1952)
  • Paul W. Rood, 3rd president (1935–1938)
  • Samuel H. Sutherland, 5th president (1952–1970)
  • J. Richard Chase, 6th president (1970–1982)
  • Clyde Cook, 7th president (1982–2007)
  • Barry Corey, 8th president (2007–present)[32]

Student organizations

Since its founding in 1908, Biola students have organized and run numerous student organizations, including the Biola Men and the King's Daughters. Biola currently has over 50 student-run clubs and organizations funded and monitored by the club director within the Associated Student government. Interestingly, the Associated Student government is both representative and administrative, containing both a student Senate and an events board composed of students, something highly uncommon in university student governments. The annual budget of the Associated Students consistently exceeds $500,000 and past leaders of the Associated Students have gone on to work in business, ministry, politics, as well as working in leadership in the University.

In Spring 2012, the Biola Rugby Football Club won its first game as a club against the UCI 3rd side, 34-5. The Biola Fight Club, a student-led Mixed Martial Arts club, was the first "MMA" club at a Christian university, though it was discontinued for unknown reasons. Other notable clubs include Maharlika ("royalty" in the Filipino language), a Filipino culture club that puts on a Pilipino Culture Night (PCN) every year in May, the Hawaii Club, which promotes the state of Hawaii and Polynesian culture, the Biola Asian Student Association (BASA), a heterogeneous Asian ethnic club, and the Honorable Biola Cheese Society, a club that began as a floor tradition with weekly meetings consisting of classical music, poetry readings, cheese tasting and grape juice.

The Film Music Guild, started by music composition student Dave Martina in 2006, is a quickly growing student organization. Originally teaching film students about music and music students about film, the Film Music Guild has recently began broadening its goals to include creative collaboration, specifically in film. On October 3, 2009, the Film Music Guild brought about 120 students and 12 industry professionals (including Pete Docter, director of Pixar's Up; John Ottman, composer and editor of Valkyrie, and many others) into the same room to discuss storytelling, film music, and creative collaboration. The Film Music Guild plans on making this an annual event.

Running parallel to the Associated Student Government is the Student Missionary Union (SMU). Established in 1923, SMU's mission is "To motivate and mobilize students to align their lives toward the completion of the Great Commission." SMU is the largest student-run missions organization in the Western hemisphere, putting on the largest annual Missions Conference in the country, as well as sending out an average of 12 student-led missions per year all over the world.

In May 2012, an underground LGBTQ community, calling themselves the Biola Queer Underground, launched a website in support of promoting dialogue and reconsideration of Biola's expulsion policy regarding homosexual behavior.[33][34] The covert group requested to be accepted as a facet of diversity within the campus, declaring that, despite traditional church teaching on homosexuality, they held similar Christian beliefs and values to the university.[34] The website was advertised on campus without authorization, and garnered national attention from the mainstream media.[35][36] The Biola administration released a statement on human sexuality shortly afterwards, and gave a chapel message reiterating their view that marriage is strictly between a man and woman.[37]

Athletics

Biola University teams, nicknamed athletically as the Eagles, are part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing in the Golden State Athletic Conference (GSAC). Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cheerleading, cross country, golf, soccer, swimming, tennis and track & field; while women's sports include basketball, cheerleading, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track & field and volleyball.

Biola University also has a club men's lacrosse team that competed in the Western Collegiate Lacrosse Conference, but as of 2009 they compete in a new conference, the Southwestern Lacrosse Conference (SLC). Biola also has a club men's rugby team that will begin playing in the SCRFU in 2013.

In 2005, the university's soccer pitch, Barbour Field, was completely rebuilt, incorporating a FieldTurf synthetic grass surface, new lighting, and a parking garage beneath the field.

Publications

The university has been involved in the publication of the following magazines and academic journals:

  • The King's Business was a monthly publication of Biola from 1910 to 1970. In the first decades of its publication, it was the leading journal for conservative Christianity and the early fundamentalist movement. In fact, The Fundamentals and The King's Business shared the same chief editor (R. A. Torrey) and were supported by the same "concerned laymen" (Lyman and Milton Stewart).
  • Philosophia Christi is a peer-reviewed journal published twice a year by the Evangelical Philosophical Society with the support of Biola University as a vehicle for the scholarly discussion of philosophy and philosophical issues in the fields of ethics, theology, and religion. The journal is indexed by The Philosopher's Index and Religious & Theological Abstracts.
  • Journal of Psychology and Theology has as its purpose to communicate recent scholarly thinking on the interrelationships of psychological and theological concepts, and to consider the application of these concepts to a variety of professional settings. The major intent of the editor is to place before the evangelical community articles that have bearing on the nature of humankind from a Biblical perspective.
  • Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care has as its purpose advancing the discussion of the theory and practice of Christian formation and soul care for the sake of the educational ministries of the church, Christian education, and other para-church organizations through scholarly publications that are rooted in Biblical exegesis, systematic theology, the history of Christian spirituality, philosophical analysis, psychological theory/research, spiritual theology, and Christian experience.
  • Christian Education Journal has as its purpose to strengthen the conception and practice of Christian education in church and para-church settings.
  • Great Commission Research Journal is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to research and scholarly thinking on church growth.
  • Biola Magazine is the official magazine of Biola University.
  • Sundoulos is the official magazine of Talbot School of Theology.
  • The Chimes is Biola's student newspaper.
  • The Point is a magazine produced by Biola's journalism program that won the 2008 Associated Collegiate Press Pacemaker Award, the highest honor for a collegiate magazine.
  • The Inkslinger is a student creative arts journal.

Notable alumni

Biola's notable alumni include Princess of Swaziland Sikhanyiso Dlamini, Major League Baseball players Tim Worrell and Todd Worrell, founder of Fuller Theological Seminary Charles E. Fuller, author Josh McDowell, U.S. Senator John Thune, film director Scott Derrickson, Emmy-nominated television producer of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" Andy Luckey, comedian Steve Bridges (most known for portraying George W. Bush), and singer Judith Hill.

Notable faculty

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Cory Stargel and Sarah Stargel, Early Downtown Los Angeles, Arcadia Publishing, 2009, ISBN 0738570036, p. 36.
  2. ↑ As of June 30, 2012. "Biola Annual Financial Report" (PDF). 2012 Biola University. Biola University. Retrieved October 10, 2013. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 William Jeynes and David W. Robinson (2012), International Handbook of Protestant Education, Springer, ISBN 9400723865, p. 127.
  4. ↑ William Deverell and Greg Hise (2010), A Companion to Los Angeles, Wiley, ISBN 1405171278, p. 196.
  5. ↑ Draney, Daniel (2008). When Streams Diverge: John Murdoch MacInnis and the Origins of Protestant Fundamentalism in Los Angeles. Paternoster. p. 66. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 Randall Herbert Balmer (2002), Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism, Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 066422409, pp. 68-70.
  7. ↑ David Kipen (2011), Los Angeles in The 1930s: The WPA Guide to the City of Angels, University of California Press, ISBN 052026883, p. 159.
  8. ↑ Brereton, Virginia (1990). Training God's Army:The American Bible School, 1880-1940. Indiana University Press. pp. 68, 103–105. 
  9. ↑ Draney, Daniel (2008). When Streams Diverge. pp. 91–100. 
  10. ↑ Hans Joachim Hillerbrand (2004) The Encyclopedia of Protestantism, Volume 1, Routledge, ISBN 0415924723, p. 388.
  11. ↑ Staggers, Kermit (1986). Reuben A. Torrey: American Fundamentalist. Claremont Graduate School: Ph.D. diss. pp. 213–214. 
  12. ↑ Mal Couch (2000), The Fundamentals for the Twenty-First Century: Examining the Crucial Issues of the Christian Faith, Kregel Academic, ISBN 0825423686, p. 16.
  13. ↑ George M. Marsden (1982), Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195030834, pp. 118-123.
  14. ↑ Marsden, George (1987). Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism. Eerdmans. pp. 39–40, 87, 95. 
  15. ↑ Williams, Robert, et al. (1983). Chartered for His Glory: Biola University, 1908-1983. La Mirada, CA: Biola University. pp. 48–51. 
  16. ↑ Fuller, Daniel P. (1972). Give the Winds a Mighty Voice: The Story of Charles E. Fuller. Waco, TX: Word Books. pp. 68–74. 
  17. ↑ Draney, Daniel (2008). When Streams Diverge. pp. 200–211. 
  18. ↑ Tom Sitton and William Francis Deverell (2001), Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s, University of California Press, ISBN 0520226275, pp. 238-243.
  19. ↑ Talbot School of Theology | On-Campus Activities « Biola University
  20. ↑ Journalism | Special Programs « Biola University
  21. ↑ Biola web site: Student Handbook: Chapel Attendance
  22. ↑ "Biola Opens New Site in Manhattan", Biola University.
  23. ↑ "Faculty Profiles « Torrey Honors Institute « Biola University". Biola.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-14. 
  24. ↑ Biola > Torrey Honors Institute : Program Overview
  25. ↑ "About « Torrey Honors Institute « Biola University". Biola.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-14. 
  26. ↑ Torrey Honors Institute - About
  27. ↑ "Mission, Vision and Values « About « Biola University". Biola.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-14. 
  28. ↑ "National University Rankings | Top National Universities | US News Best Colleges". Colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com. 2013-01-14. Retrieved 2013-10-14. 
  29. ↑ "Biola University | Best College | US News". Colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com. 2013-01-14. Retrieved 2013-10-14. 
  30. ↑ "Up and Coming Schools |Top National Universities | US News Best Colleges". Colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com. 2013-01-14. Retrieved 2013-10-14. 
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Williams, Robert, et al. (1983). Chartered for His Glory. Biola University. pp. 10–35. 
  32. ↑ >http://100.biola.edu/index.cfm?pageid=33
  33. ↑ http://studentlife.biola.edu/handbook/community-standards/accountability/
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 "biolaunderground.com". Biolaunderground.webs.com. 2013-06-21. Retrieved 2013-10-14. 
  35. ↑ "Underground gay group emerges, shaking evangelical Christian college - U.S. News". Usnews.nbcnews.com. 2012-05-24. Retrieved 2013-10-14. 
  36. ↑ "Biola University's 'Queer Underground' Emerges, Rattling Evangelical Faculty And Student Body". Huffingtonpost.com. 2012-05-24. Retrieved 2013-10-14. 
  37. ↑

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Coordinates: 33°54′20″N 118°01′05″W / 33.905558°N 118.018117°W / 33.905558; -118.018117

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