California Lutheran University
Encyclopedia : C : CA : CAL : California Lutheran University
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.
Mission statement
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.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 Mount Clef and Thompson dormitories would be hotels for on campus guests and families of students. These dorms are still in use for under classmen to the present day. Dahl had dreamed of developing a north campus near mount Clef Hill. 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 tne 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 thai 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.
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 inadequete 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.
Student body
Although it is a Lutheran instution, CLU's student body is often less than 25% Lutheran. 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, Washington, Hawaii, and Minnesota.Students are required to live on campus for their first three years. 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.
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.
Notable Alumni
- Hank Bauer - retired special teams player San Diego Chargers, 1977-1982
- Kevin Gross - retired Major League Baseball All-Star pitcher
- Brian Kelley - retired linebacker New York Giants, 1973-1983
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