Everything about Liberty University totally explained
Liberty University is a
Christian liberal arts university in
Lynchburg, Virginia. It was founded as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971 by
Jerry Falwell who was also the Senior Pastor of
Thomas Road Baptist Church. The school was previously known as Lynchburg Baptist College and Liberty Baptist College before settling on its current name in 1985.
The
US News and World Report currently ranks Liberty University as a fourth tier postsecondary institution in the National Universities category.
Religious foundation
Falwell's vision was to build a university with as many students as
Notre Dame and
Brigham Young University, with nearly 11,000 resident students and another 25,000 in the Distance Learning Program. Liberty summarizes its philosophy of education in the following principles as being based in spiritual and theological life.
Campus life
Students who live on campus are required to attend convocation three times per week where they've worship services and hear from speakers in all walks of professional life. Past speakers have included President
Ronald Reagan, President
George H. W. Bush,Rev.
Billy Graham, Col.
Oliver North,
Steve Forbes, Leonard Davidson, Former US Senator from North Carolina
Jesse Helms,
Sam Donaldson,
John R. Rice,
Elisabeth Elliot (wife of the late missionary
Jim Elliot),
Skip Erickson,
Freddie Gage,
Adrian Rogers, creationist
Ken Ham, governor
Tim Kaine,
John McCain,
Sean Hannity, and 2008 Presidential Candidates
Mike Huckabee and
Ron Paul. Falwell regularly spoke at chapel, giving his "Never Give Up" speech in the first semester.
Liberty University continues to invest in capital projects, with 19 new dormitory buildings and a tunnel connecting the east and west ends of the campus completed for the fall semester of
2004.
For the 2006 school year, Liberty University recently built five new dormitory buildings on Campus East, and completed six additional units for fall
2007. In addition, a campus bus/shuttle system was added in the fall of 2006, providing transportation both on and off campus until midnight most evenings.
Liberty Christian Academy, (formerly Lynchburg Christian Academy) began its Spring semester of 2006 in its new building on Liberty's campus.
July 2, 2006 marked the first Thomas Road services to be held in the new building adjacent to Liberty's campus. The University has official ties with
Thomas Road Baptist Church, the church that founded the University.
The facilities at Liberty University include the 90,000 square foot LaHaye Student Center, which boasts an impressive Lounge, Basketball Courts, Cardio and Weight Rooms, Cafe, Multi-Purpose Rooms, Aerobic Rooms and other amenities. Other projects include the expansion of student activity facilities, a Law School and Library, and an
ice hockey rink which was donated by
Tim and
Beverly LaHaye, and a new football operations center, donated by AL Williams — a frequent benefactor of the school.
The
Liberty University School of Law has a partial replica of the United States Supreme Court (the bench and podiums are to scale), where students practice oral advocacy.
In December 2007, Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. announced plans for the development of a sports park on the 5,000-acre, university-owned Liberty Mountain that flanks the campus; the park is planned to feature hiking and biking trails, a
ski lift and
Snowflex slope, downhill bike trails and will be open to students and the public.
Liberty Way
The university has a code of student conduct, documented in
"The Liberty Way"
, which states: "It is the duty of every student to respect Liberty's Statement of Doctrine and Purpose. They may not engage in any activity on or off campus that would compromise the testimony or reputation of the University or cause disruption to Liberty's Christian learning environment." The code of conduct includes possible reprimands and, later, fines, for such activities as attending dances, violating curfew, viewing R-rated movies, drinking, smoking, viewing sexually explicit material, entering the bedroom of a member of the opposite sex, having an abortion, and participating in unauthorized petitions.
The phrase "That's not the Liberty Way" is commonly heard across campus, used by students and professors alike as a good-natured "poke" at the school's rules. On several occasions Falwell described the school as "Bible Boot Camp." He exhorted Liberty's students to burn it down if it "ever turned liberal."
In the summer of
2005, the university announced it was slightly relaxing its in-class
dress code to allow
flip-flops,
capri pants,
jeans, and other casual articles of clothing (but not shorts) to be worn in the classroom as long as the clothing didn't have holes in them. Rules such as collared shirts for male students still apply. Faculty members work under a contract requiring them to abide by similar behavioral codes.
Faculty
Using "
non-tenured teaching faculty" was a matter of pride to Falwell, as it allows the administration to keep a firm grip on the behavior of the academic community. As Falwell once stated, "When we ask a faculty member be dismissed when he's teaching something wrong, our president understands and it's good to do that — because your paycheck may not be coming along next week if you don't." Though Falwell had opposed tenure in the past, the University tenured its first faculty member, Bruce Green, in 2004 and Professors Roger Bern and Jeffrey Tuomala followed within a few years.
Accreditation
Liberty was founded in 1971 and received
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation in 1980. In 2006, Liberty successfully completed re-accreditation, and remains currently accredited by SACS and TRACS. The law school, which opened in 2003, gained provisional accreditation from the
American Bar Association in 2006, which enables its graduates to sit for any
bar examination in the United States. Provisional Accreditation is the highest level of accreditation available at present; full accreditation can't be granted until a school has been in operation for five years. Students graduating from a provisionally accredited law school enjoy the full rights guaranteed to fully accredited schools.
In 1991 Liberty University applied for additional accreditation with the newly recognized
Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS) gave "immediate accreditation" to the university.
Academics and rankings
As of March 2007, Liberty offers 71 majors & specializations and among those offered are
Religion,
Worship & Music Ministry,
Business,
Criminal Justice,
Education and
Nursing. The university's highly-ranked Distance Learning Program offers 36 degree programs.
Liberty University also offers a
School of Law,
School of Engineering and Computational Sciences, and a
Theological Seminary.
LU has been ranked in the Top-10 most conservative colleges in the U.S. by
The Princeton Review,
Young America's Foundation, and
The Christian Science Monitor.
In
2007,
U.S. News & World Report ranked Liberty University in the fourth tier (bottom 25%) of Southern Master's Universities for
school year 2008, and denotes its selectivity as "Less Selective", with an acceptance rate of 71%.
In
2005,
Barron's Profiles of American Colleges ranked LU as a "competitive" college.
In
2007 Liberty University School of Law, provisionally approved by the
American Bar Association, announced an 89% Bar passage rate from its first graduating class of Law Students. The bar passage rate far exceeded the State Average of 71.97%.
Extracurricular activities
Sports
The University is a member of the
NCAA Division I-AA level
Big South Conference for 18 sports. The other eight members include
Virginia Military Institute,
Radford University, and
Winthrop University. The University regularly competes for the
Sasser Cup which is the Big South's trophy for the university which has the best sports program among the member institutions. Liberty has won the Sasser Cup five times, second only to
Coastal Carolina University, which has won it seven times.
In addition, Liberty University students won the inaugural Big South Conference Quiz Bowl competition in 2006, and recently repeated the feat in 2007 to retain the title for the second consecutive year.
Perhaps the most prominent athlete to come through Liberty is current senior
Josh McDougal. McDougal is a 12 time cross country and track All-American and in November of 2007 outkicked Oregon's Galen Rupp to win the
NCAA D1 Cross Country Championship. He has also helped lead the Flames' cross country and track teams to numerous Big South Championships.
Liberty's
football program is headed by
Danny Rocco (2006 & 2007 Big South coach of the year), who had coached for the
New York Jets and
Virginia Cavaliers under
Al Groh. In 2006 — Rocco's first year at the helm — he led the Flames to a 6-5 winning season from the 2005 season going 1-10 (noted the biggest turnaround in the nation in the FCS) and in 2007, his team almost won at
Division I FBS team . Liberty plays their home games at
Williams Stadium (12,000).
The University gained some media attention in the winter of 2005 when their women's basketball team, the
Lady Flames, made the
NCAA Sweet Sixteen and were labeled a "
Cinderella" team, led by
Katie Feenstra. After defeating fourth-seeded
Penn State and fifth-seeded
DePaul, the Flames' winning streak was halted by top-seeded
LSU. Feenstra was later
drafted by the
San Antonio Silver Stars of the
Women's National Basketball Association, a professional league. Volleyball and both Men and Women's Basketball are played inside the 9,000 seat
Vines Center, which also hosts special events and concerts, such as
WinterFest.
2006 marked an important event in Liberty athletics, as the Flames returned to wrestling competition for the first time since 1994. Former Flames’ wrestler Jesse Castro was hired as Liberty’s new head wrestling coach; he graduated from the program in 1981 after earning his bachelor’s degree in physical education. Wrestling is no stranger to Liberty University as the school sponsored the sport from 1974 to 1994. The reinstatement of the wrestling program was aided by the support of the Liberty University Wrestling Foundation, which is a group of alumni and supporters of the former program who have been raising funds to help facilitate the return of wrestling to Liberty University.
2007 Big South Conference Champions
On
November 17,
2007 the Flames captured their first Big South Conference Football championship with a dominating 31-0 victory over
Gardner-Webb University. The Flames capped off their second year under head coach
Danny Rocco with an 8-3 record and an unblemished 4-0 Big South record to claim the title. The same week, The Liberty University Men's Soccer team beat Radford University 2-1 to capture the Big South Conference soccer title and their first appearance in the national tournament. Also that same week, the Liberty Women's Volleyball team shutout
Winthrop in the finals of the Big South Volleyball tournament. it was the first conference championship for the volleyball team since 2001. The Liberty Men's and Women's cross country teams also dominated the Big South Championship with Josh McDougal, Jordan McDougal and Jarvis Jelen sweeping the top 3 positions in the men's race for the third straight year.
Debate
Liberty's
Inter-Collegiate policy debate program, formerly led by Brett O'Donnell, was number one in the overall rankings Championships in the
National Debate Tournament for 2005, 2006, and 2007. The touting of this by Liberty and in the press has led to controversy, as the overall ranking included results for novice and junior varsity debates. In varsity rankings, Liberty was twentieth in 2005, seventeenth in 2006, and twenty-fourth in 2007.
As reported by ABC News and the Associated Press the Liberty Debate team accumulates points by sending lots of teams to small tournaments, debating almost exclusively in their district, while not engaging known debate champions like
Michigan State,
Berkeley,
Dartmouth,
Emory and
Harvard.
Criticism of the debate program extends to the Christian community as well. John Lofton of
The American View Christian radio show accused Liberty University of not being "a truly Christian college" when Jerry Falwell gave permission for the debate team to debate in favor of abortion when required. The issue arose when the team was faced with the need to argue for abortion rights or give up the debate program for that year.
Finances
In the past the institution faced a series of financial crises. Today the University is self sustaining and financially independent. Total enrollment has increased to nearly 24,000 students (undergraduate, graduate and distance learning) in the past five years — a 74% increase. Tuition has also increased significantly during this time, though not at a pace that exceeds tuition increases at other schools. In 2007 Liberty was between $20 and $25 million in debt, but when Falwell died in May he'd a $34 million insurance policy, which was used to pay off the debt.
Controversy
1972 Securities and Exchange Commission investigation
Jerry Falwell started Lynchburg Baptist College by selling bonds to a small group of private investors. However, in 1972, the
Securities and Exchange Commission investigated the bonds alleging Falwell's church committed "fraud and deceit" in the issuance of $6.5 million in unsecured church bonds. The church won a 1973 federal court case prosecuted at the behest of the SEC, in which the Court completely exonerated the church and ruled that there had been no intentional wrong-doing.
1994 Debt Buy-out
Sun Myung Moon, founder of the
Unification Church and owner of the
Washington Times, helped to financially stabilize the University through two of his organizations: News World Communications, which provided a $400,000 loan to the University; and the
Reber-Thomas Christian Heritage Foundation, which contributed over $3.5 million toward the school's debt. Liberty University spokesman Mark DeMoss said the school wasn't aware of News World's connection to Moon when it obtained the loan through a broker. "I'm not going to be pious and tell you we'd have turned it down," DeMoss said. "Because it was a business transaction, we probably would have moved forward even if Dr. Falwell or somebody in the organization knew who News World Communications was." Liberty University founder Jerry Falwell stated that the source of the funds doesn't influence his ministry, Stating: "If the American Atheists Society or Saddam Hussein himself ever sent an unrestricted gift to any of my ministries, be assured I'll operate on Billy Sunday's philosophy: The Devil's had it long enough, and quickly cash the check."
Ron Godwin, now Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer at Liberty University, was previously employed under Rev. Moon as Vice President of the Washington Times.
2005 Equality Ride
Liberty made news in 2005 when students from the
Equality Ride visited the university and spoke informally with Liberty students. According to organizers, they were turned away from the library when they tried to donate books about
homosexuality. The organizers were also unable to turn over to Jerry Falwell, the founder and chancellor of the university, anonymous letters from alleged current students at Liberty who claim they're gay. They were, however, able to speak with some of the students who attend the school. In March of 2006, the Equality Ride returned, resulting in 24 arrests for tresspassing when they attempted to cross into campus property after being warned not to.
Don Egle, director of public relations at Liberty, said, "We don’t feel that this situation warrants a comment." Jake Reitan, director of youth programs for
Soulforce, said that the group requested the library accept books that could be added “that students could decide to read or not,” and called for the University to designate some place on campus where students could talk about being gay without fear of being expelled or having their parents informed.
In early 2005, SoulForce asked to return and was granted permission by Liberty University to sit in quiet protest in one of Liberty University's weekly convocations. After the convocation, the Soulforce members were met with kindness from Liberty faculty and staff- many who stayed after the service to have friendly conversations with the Soulforce members. Students at Liberty University even baked homemade cookies for members of Soulforce. Soulforce sent word back to Liberty saying that they were pleased with the way they were treated.
In April 2006, Falwell allowed Reform Rabbi
Eric Yoffie to speak at the university on behalf of gay rights citing legal protections for gay couples.
(External Link) "You oppose gay marriage while we believe in legal protection for gay couples. We understand your reading of the Biblical texts, even if we read those texts in a different way." Falwell said Yoffie's tone was as important as his message. "He came across in a loving, respectful way," and students were also responsive, and expressed interest in common ground.
Currently, the school is looking for biology teachers with "a
young-earth creationist philosophy."
(External Link) Furthermore, the school asserts "there is now mounting evidence that man and dinosaurs did indeed live on earth at the same time" and says that "the chances are good" that there were dinosaurs on board
Noah's Ark.
Liberty professor
Marcus R. Ross was featured in a report on creationism. Ross "believes that the Bible is a literally true account of the creation of the universe, and that the earth is at most 10,000 years old," but earned his Ph.D. in geosciences from
University of Rhode Island with a dissertation about "the abundance and spread of
mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the
Cretaceous era about 65 million years ago."
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