California Lutheran University

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

California Lutheran University


Motto	Love of Christ, Truth and Freedom
Established	1959
Type	Private
Endowment	$40.2 million [1]
President	Dr. John Sladek
Faculty	283 (134 full time, 149 part time)
Undergraduates	2,124
Postgraduates	1,174
Location	Thousand Oaks, CA, USA
Campus	Suburban - 225 acres (0.91 km²)
Athletics	http://www.clusports.com
Colors	Purple and Gold
Mascot	Kingsmen (men), Regals (women)
Affiliations	Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)
Website	http://www.callutheran.edu/

California Lutheran University (CLU also known as Cal Lutheran) is a university of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located in Thousand Oaks, California.

As of 2004, CLU is a Common Application program participant.

1 Mission statement
2 History
3 Campus
4 Student body
5 Scholarships
6 KCLU
7 Notable Alumni

[edit] Mission statement

The University's mission statement is as follows: "California Lutheran University is a diverse, scholarly community dedicated to excellence in the liberal arts and professional studies. Rooted in the Lutheran tradition of Christian faith, the University encourages critical inquiry into matters of both faith and reason. The mission of the University is to educate leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice." [2]

[edit] History

CLU was founded in 1959 on farmland donated by the Pederson family, who were among many Scandinavian immigrants populating the hills of Thousand Oaks. The Scandinavian influence has stayed with the school. Every spring a cultural festival takes over the campus for a weekend. Also, many buildings on campus and streets in the area are named for prominent Scandinavians who helped to found CLU.

Orville Dahl, Ed. D. was the first president of the College from 1959-1962. Dahl had many ambitious dreams for what the college was to become. He originally thought that the Pederson and Thompson dormitories would be hotels for on campus guests and families of students. These dorms are still in use for present day freshman. Dahl had dreamed of developing a North campus near Mount Clef. He also brought the university's first football coach, Robert Shoup, to the campus in 1962. Shoup used an orange orchard for football practice and used the local high school stadium for home games for the first two seasons. He won 13 NAIA District 3 Championships in 17 years. The Kingsmen appeared in the playoffs five times, winning the NAIA National Championship in 1971. He was named NAIA Coach of the Year in 1971. As the head coach of the Kingsmen he was named in the Who's Who in America and the #1 winning university college football coach in California up to the time he quit coaching in 1988, and ninth among coaches at any level of college football nationally. His football teams were listed in the top 10 winningest college football teams over the last 50 years with a 182-81-6 record, and that included such large school giants at Oklahoma, Penn State, Alabama and Notre Dame.

The G and F buildings, currently offices, are one of the few remaining vestages of CLU's past. The former chicken coops now house offices for several academic departments.

[edit] Campus

The 225-acre campus occupies a gently sloping hillside amid the rolling hills of Southern California. Currently, the CLU campus is in the midst of unprecedented expansion. A new athletics center, titled "The Gilbert Sports and Fitness Center" located at North Campus will nearly double the size of the developed campus. CLU has long suffered from woefully inadequate athletics facilities, but hopes to attract more talent and attain more recognition with the new facility.

The athletics center is not the only part of CLU's aggressive expansion. A new dormitory, Grace Hall, just opened on the southwest side of campus. The entire campus has undergone a long-overdue facelift, adding a welcome center and more offices.

It is notable that the former chicken coops mentioned above were converted into classrooms by Jefferson A. Elmendorf, the same architect who designed "The Centrum". The Centrum is that complex of original buildings built of brick and graced with barrel vault roofs. Mr. Elmendorf worked along side Dr. Dahl master planning the campus. In fact, his office was on the campus. He started in the chicken coops with a draftman and eventually moved into the administration office building where he eventually had 5 draftsmen/architects working for him. Mr. Elmendorf's architecture is quite distinctive and can be seen all over the Ventura and L.A. Counties.

[edit] Student body

Although it is a Lutheran instution, CLU's student body is often less than 25% Lutheran. This has led some to jokingly say that "The Lutheran in Cal Lutheran is silent." CLU maintains close ties with several foreign organizations, and hosts exchange students from a variety of nations. A large portion of students come from out-of-state as well, including Arizona, Colorado, Washington, Hawaii, and Minnesota. Cal Lutheran is home to a variety of students including on campus residents as well as commuter students. However, because of the incredibly high cost of living in the area, many students live on campus for their entire careers. CLU usually has sufficient space to accommodate students, but with rising enrollments in recent years, a few shortages have occurred.

[edit] Scholarships

To date, a scholarship offered by CLU is the Presidential Scholarship. One of the requirements for a student to earn this scholarship is to have a GPA of at least 3.75, and to have scored highly on either the SAT or the ACT (M. Pfeiffer, personal communication, 2004).

In 2003, the University began offering an undergraduate major and minor in bioengineering. Around the same time, it partnered with the University of Southern California, the University of California, Los Angeles, Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, and Baxter BioScience to further research in tissue engineering. (As of 2004, the University offers to its undergraduate students a course in tissue engineering.) For an undergraduate degree with a major in bioengineering, the University requires students to complete advanced courses in physics, biology, and mathematics, aside from the bioengineering courses. The mathematics requirements alone are nearly enough for a degree with a minor in mathematics.

[edit] KCLU

KCLU Radio, an award winning National Public Radio station located on California Lutheran University's campus. The station services Ventura County, California at a radio frequency of 88.3 MHz and Santa Barbara, California at a frequency of 102.3 MHz.