Difference between revisions of "Bob Jones University"

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Bob Jones took no salary from the college and helped support the school with personal savings and income from his evangelistic campaigns. Both time and place were inauspicious. The [[Florida land boom]] had peaked in 1925, and a hurricane in September 1926 further reduced land values. The [[Great Depression]] followed hard on its heels. Bob Jones College barely survived [[bankruptcy]] and its move to [[Cleveland, Tennessee]] in 1933. In the same year, the college also ended participation in intercollegiate sports. Nevertheless, Jones's move to Cleveland proved extraordinarily advantageous.  Bankrupt at the nadir of the Depression, without a home, and with barely enough money to move its library and office furniture, the college became in thirteen years the largest [[liberal arts]] college in Tennessee. With the enactment of the [[GI Bill]] at the end of [[World War II]], the need for campus expansion to accommodate increased enrollment led to a relocation to South Carolina.<ref>Turner, 68, 101–02.</ref><ref>https://www.bju.edu/about/history.php|title=History of BJU|website=Bob Jones University|language=en-US|access-date=October 10, 2018}}</ref>
 
Bob Jones took no salary from the college and helped support the school with personal savings and income from his evangelistic campaigns. Both time and place were inauspicious. The [[Florida land boom]] had peaked in 1925, and a hurricane in September 1926 further reduced land values. The [[Great Depression]] followed hard on its heels. Bob Jones College barely survived [[bankruptcy]] and its move to [[Cleveland, Tennessee]] in 1933. In the same year, the college also ended participation in intercollegiate sports. Nevertheless, Jones's move to Cleveland proved extraordinarily advantageous.  Bankrupt at the nadir of the Depression, without a home, and with barely enough money to move its library and office furniture, the college became in thirteen years the largest [[liberal arts]] college in Tennessee. With the enactment of the [[GI Bill]] at the end of [[World War II]], the need for campus expansion to accommodate increased enrollment led to a relocation to South Carolina.<ref>Turner, 68, 101–02.</ref><ref>https://www.bju.edu/about/history.php|title=History of BJU|website=Bob Jones University|language=en-US|access-date=October 10, 2018}}</ref>
  
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Though he had served as Acting President as early as 1934, Jones' son, [[Bob Jones Jr.]] officially became the school's second president in 1947 just before the college moved to [[Greenville, South Carolina]], and became Bob Jones University.<ref>Turner, 57–58. On the move to Greenville see John Matzko, "'This Is It, Isn't It, Brother Stone?' The Move of Bob Jones University from Cleveland, Tennessee, to Greenville, 1946–47", ''South Carolina Historical Magazine'', 108 (July 2007), 235–256. The former Cleveland campus currently serves as the home of [[Lee University]], an institution supported by the [[Church of God (Cleveland)|Church of God]].</ref> In Greenville, the university more than doubled in size within two years and started its own radio station, film department, and art gallery—the latter of which eventually became one of the largest collections of religious art in the Western Hemisphere.<ref>Hilde S. Hein, ''Public Art: Thinking Museums Differently'' (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006), xxix.</ref>
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Though he had been Acting President as early as 1934, Jones' son, [[Bob Jones Jr.]] officially became the school's second president in 1947 just before the college moved to [[Greenville, South Carolina]], and became Bob Jones University.<ref>Turner, 57–58. On the move to Greenville see John Matzko, "'This Is It, Isn't It, Brother Stone?' The Move of Bob Jones University from Cleveland, Tennessee, to Greenville, 1946–47", ''South Carolina Historical Magazine'', 108 (July 2007), 235–256. The former Cleveland campus currently serves as the home of [[Lee University]], an institution supported by the [[Church of God (Cleveland)|Church of God]].</ref> In Greenville, the university more than doubled in size within two years and started its own radio station, film department, and art gallery—the latter of which eventually became one of the largest collections of religious art in the Western Hemisphere.<ref>Hilde S. Hein, ''Public Art: Thinking Museums Differently'' (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006), xxix.</ref>
  
 
During the late 1950s, BJU and alumnus [[Billy Graham (evangelist)|Billy Graham]], who had attended Bob Jones College for one semester and received an [[honorary degree]] from the university in 1948,<ref>Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997age=167}}</ref> engaged in a controversy about the propriety of theological conservatives cooperating with theological liberals to support evangelistic campaigns, a controversy that widened an already growing rift between separatist fundamentalists and other evangelicals.<ref>Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|page=180}}</ref> Negative publicity caused by the dispute precipitated a decline in BJU enrollment of about 10% in the years 1956–59, and seven members of the university board (of about a hundred) also resigned in support of Graham, including Graham himself and two of his staff members.<ref>Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|pages=179–188, 253}}</ref> When, in 1966, Graham held his only American campaign in Greenville,<ref>Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|page=183}} Graham had only three campaigns scheduled that year: London, Berlin, and Greenville, South Carolina.</ref> the university forbade any BJU dormitory student from attending under penalty of expulsion.<ref>"No Bob Jones University dormitory student will be permitted to go to a single meeting of the Greenville crusade. No Bob Jones University adult student, if he is married or lives in town, may attend the crusade and remain as a student." [[Bob Jones Jr.]], Chapel talk, February 8, 1965, Mack Library Archives. An exception was made for Bob Jones Academy students who lived in town with their parents.</ref> Enrollment quickly rebounded, and by 1970, there were 3,300 students, approximately 60% more than in 1958.
 
During the late 1950s, BJU and alumnus [[Billy Graham (evangelist)|Billy Graham]], who had attended Bob Jones College for one semester and received an [[honorary degree]] from the university in 1948,<ref>Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997age=167}}</ref> engaged in a controversy about the propriety of theological conservatives cooperating with theological liberals to support evangelistic campaigns, a controversy that widened an already growing rift between separatist fundamentalists and other evangelicals.<ref>Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|page=180}}</ref> Negative publicity caused by the dispute precipitated a decline in BJU enrollment of about 10% in the years 1956–59, and seven members of the university board (of about a hundred) also resigned in support of Graham, including Graham himself and two of his staff members.<ref>Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|pages=179–188, 253}}</ref> When, in 1966, Graham held his only American campaign in Greenville,<ref>Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|page=183}} Graham had only three campaigns scheduled that year: London, Berlin, and Greenville, South Carolina.</ref> the university forbade any BJU dormitory student from attending under penalty of expulsion.<ref>"No Bob Jones University dormitory student will be permitted to go to a single meeting of the Greenville crusade. No Bob Jones University adult student, if he is married or lives in town, may attend the crusade and remain as a student." [[Bob Jones Jr.]], Chapel talk, February 8, 1965, Mack Library Archives. An exception was made for Bob Jones Academy students who lived in town with their parents.</ref> Enrollment quickly rebounded, and by 1970, there were 3,300 students, approximately 60% more than in 1958.
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In 1971, [[Bob Jones III]] became president at age 32, though his father, with the title of Chancellor, continued to exercise considerable administrative authority into the late 1990s.<ref>Turner, 205.</ref> At the 2005 commencement, Stephen Jones was installed as the fourth president, and Bob Jones III assumed the title of chancellor.<ref>[http://www.bju.edu/about/history.php BJU website].</ref> Stephen Jones resigned in 2014 for health reasons, and [[Steve Pettit]] was named president, the first unrelated to the Jones family.<ref>[http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/education/2014/05/08/new-bju-president-announced-today/8857031/ ''Greenville News'', May 9, 2014]  Pettit was formally installed as president on September 19, 2014. [http://www.bju.edu/about/president/program.pdf "Investiture of Stephen D. Pettit as Fifth President of Bob Jones University"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140923085815/http://www.bju.edu/about/president/program.pdf |date=September 23, 2014 }}; ''Greenville News'', September 20, 2014, 1.</ref>
 
In 1971, [[Bob Jones III]] became president at age 32, though his father, with the title of Chancellor, continued to exercise considerable administrative authority into the late 1990s.<ref>Turner, 205.</ref> At the 2005 commencement, Stephen Jones was installed as the fourth president, and Bob Jones III assumed the title of chancellor.<ref>[http://www.bju.edu/about/history.php BJU website].</ref> Stephen Jones resigned in 2014 for health reasons, and [[Steve Pettit]] was named president, the first unrelated to the Jones family.<ref>[http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/education/2014/05/08/new-bju-president-announced-today/8857031/ ''Greenville News'', May 9, 2014]  Pettit was formally installed as president on September 19, 2014. [http://www.bju.edu/about/president/program.pdf "Investiture of Stephen D. Pettit as Fifth President of Bob Jones University"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140923085815/http://www.bju.edu/about/president/program.pdf |date=September 23, 2014 }}; ''Greenville News'', September 20, 2014, 1.</ref>
  
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In 2011, the university became a member of the [[Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools]] (TRACS) and reinstated intercollegiate athletics.<ref>"Investiture of Stephen D. Pettit as Fifth President of Bob Jones University" <ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20140923085815/http://www.bju.edu/about/president/program.pdf |archive-date=September 23, 2014 </ref> In March 2017 the university regained its federal tax exemption after a complicated restructuring divided the organization into for-profit and non-profit entities,<ref>http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/education/2017/02/16/bju-regains-nonprofit-status-17-years-after-dropped-discriminatory-policy/98009170/|title=Bob Jones University regains nonprofit status 17 years after it dropped discriminatory policy|website=greenvilleonline.com}}</ref> and in June it was granted accreditation by the [[Southern Association of Colleges and Schools]].<ref>http://www.bju.edu/news/2017-06-accreditation.php|title=BJU Granted Regional Accreditation|website=Bob Jones University}}</ref>
+
In 2011, the university became a member of the [[Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools]] (TRACS) and reinstated intercollegiate athletics.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20140923085815/http://www.bju.edu/about/president/program.pdf |archive-date=September 23, 2014 </ref> In March 2017 the university regained its federal tax exemption after a complicated restructuring divided the organization into for-profit and non-profit entities,<ref>http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/education/2017/02/16/bju-regains-nonprofit-status-17-years-after-dropped-discriminatory-policy/98009170/|title=Bob Jones University regains nonprofit status 17 years after it dropped discriminatory policy|website=greenvilleonline.com}}</ref> and in June it was granted accreditation by the [[Southern Association of Colleges and Schools]].<ref>http://www.bju.edu/news/2017-06-accreditation.php|title=BJU Granted Regional Accreditation|website=Bob Jones University}}</ref>
  
 
==Academics==
 
==Academics==
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As a twelve-year-old, Bob Jones Sr. made a twenty-minute speech in defense of the [[Populist Party (United States)|Populist Party]]. Jones was a friend and admirer of [[William Jennings Bryan]] but also campaigned throughout the South for [[Herbert Hoover]] (and against [[Al Smith]]) during the 1928 presidential election. Even the authorized history of BJU notes that both Bob Jones Sr. and Bob Jones Jr. "played political hardball" when dealing with the three municipalities in which the school was successively located. For instance, in 1962, Bob Jones Sr. warned the Greenville City Council that he had "four hundred votes in his pocket and in any election he would have control over who would be elected." <ref>Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|pages=3, 10, 78, 246, 428}}</ref>
 
As a twelve-year-old, Bob Jones Sr. made a twenty-minute speech in defense of the [[Populist Party (United States)|Populist Party]]. Jones was a friend and admirer of [[William Jennings Bryan]] but also campaigned throughout the South for [[Herbert Hoover]] (and against [[Al Smith]]) during the 1928 presidential election. Even the authorized history of BJU notes that both Bob Jones Sr. and Bob Jones Jr. "played political hardball" when dealing with the three municipalities in which the school was successively located. For instance, in 1962, Bob Jones Sr. warned the Greenville City Council that he had "four hundred votes in his pocket and in any election he would have control over who would be elected." <ref>Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|pages=3, 10, 78, 246, 428}}</ref>
  
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Bob Jones Sr.'s April 17, 1960, [[Easter Sunday]] sermon, broadcast on the radio, entitled "Is Segregation Scriptural?" served as the University position paper on race in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The transcript was sent in pamphlet form in fund-raising letters and sold in the university bookstore. In the sermon, Jones states "If you are against segregation and against racial separation, then you are against God Almighty." The school began a long history of supporting politicians who were considered aligned with racial segregation.<ref>Manis|first1=Andrew M.|title=Southern civil religions in conflict : civil rights and the culture wars|date=2002|publisher=Mercer University Press|location=Macon, Ga.|isbn=0865547963}}</ref><ref>https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/evangelical-history/2016/07/26/is-segregation-scriptural-a-radio-address-from-bob-jones-on-easter-of-1960/|title=Is Segregation Scriptural? A Radio Address from Bob Jones on Easter of 1960|website=thegospelcoalition.org}}</ref><ref>http://samanthabee.com/dr-bob-jones-sr-is-segregation-scriptural/</ref>
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Bob Jones Sr.'s April 17, 1960, [[Easter Sunday]] sermon, broadcast on the radio, entitled "Is Segregation Scriptural?" was the University position paper on race in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The transcript was sent in pamphlet form in fund-raising letters and sold in the university bookstore. In the sermon, Jones states "If you are against segregation and against racial separation, then you are against God Almighty." The school began a long history of supporting politicians who were considered aligned with racial segregation.<ref>Manis|first1=Andrew M.|title=Southern civil religions in conflict : civil rights and the culture wars|date=2002|publisher=Mercer University Press|location=Macon, Ga.|isbn=0865547963}}</ref><ref>https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/evangelical-history/2016/07/26/is-segregation-scriptural-a-radio-address-from-bob-jones-on-easter-of-1960/|title=Is Segregation Scriptural? A Radio Address from Bob Jones on Easter of 1960|website=thegospelcoalition.org}}</ref><ref>http://samanthabee.com/dr-bob-jones-sr-is-segregation-scriptural/</ref>
  
 
====Republican Party ties====
 
====Republican Party ties====

Latest revision as of 15:26, 1 July 2023

Group.png Bob Jones University  
(University) WebsiteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
Bob Jones University logo (adopted 2013).png
AbbreviationBJU
MottoPetimus Credimus
(We seek, we trust)
Formation1927
HeadquartersGreenville, South Carolina
US hard-line religious college

Bob Jones University (BJU) is a private, non-denominational evangelical university in Greenville, South Carolina. It is known for its conservative cultural and religious positions. The university, with approximately 2,500 students, is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) and the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. The university's athletic teams, the Bruins, compete in Division II of the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) and provisionally in Division III of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). In 2008, the university estimated the number of its graduates at 35,000; in 2017, 40,184.[1]

History

Bob Jones Sr., the university's founder

During the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy of the 1920s, Christian evangelist Bob Jones Sr. grew increasingly concerned about what he perceived to be the secularization of higher education and the influence of religious liberalism in denominational colleges. Jones recalled that in 1924, his friend William Jennings Bryan had leaned over to him at a Bible conference service in Winona Lake, Indiana, and said, "If schools and colleges do not quit teaching evolution as a fact, we are going to become a nation of atheists."[2] While he himself was not a college graduate, Jones grew determined to found a college, and on September 12, 1927, he opened Bob Jones College in Panama City, Florida, with 88 students. Jones said that although he had been averse to naming the school after himself, his friends overcame his reluctance "with the argument that the school would be called by that name because of my connection with it, and to attempt to give it any other name would confuse the people".[3]

Bob Jones took no salary from the college and helped support the school with personal savings and income from his evangelistic campaigns. Both time and place were inauspicious. The Florida land boom had peaked in 1925, and a hurricane in September 1926 further reduced land values. The Great Depression followed hard on its heels. Bob Jones College barely survived bankruptcy and its move to Cleveland, Tennessee in 1933. In the same year, the college also ended participation in intercollegiate sports. Nevertheless, Jones's move to Cleveland proved extraordinarily advantageous. Bankrupt at the nadir of the Depression, without a home, and with barely enough money to move its library and office furniture, the college became in thirteen years the largest liberal arts college in Tennessee. With the enactment of the GI Bill at the end of World War II, the need for campus expansion to accommodate increased enrollment led to a relocation to South Carolina.[4][5]

Though he had been Acting President as early as 1934, Jones' son, Bob Jones Jr. officially became the school's second president in 1947 just before the college moved to Greenville, South Carolina, and became Bob Jones University.[6] In Greenville, the university more than doubled in size within two years and started its own radio station, film department, and art gallery—the latter of which eventually became one of the largest collections of religious art in the Western Hemisphere.[7]

During the late 1950s, BJU and alumnus Billy Graham, who had attended Bob Jones College for one semester and received an honorary degree from the university in 1948,[8] engaged in a controversy about the propriety of theological conservatives cooperating with theological liberals to support evangelistic campaigns, a controversy that widened an already growing rift between separatist fundamentalists and other evangelicals.[9] Negative publicity caused by the dispute precipitated a decline in BJU enrollment of about 10% in the years 1956–59, and seven members of the university board (of about a hundred) also resigned in support of Graham, including Graham himself and two of his staff members.[10] When, in 1966, Graham held his only American campaign in Greenville,[11] the university forbade any BJU dormitory student from attending under penalty of expulsion.[12] Enrollment quickly rebounded, and by 1970, there were 3,300 students, approximately 60% more than in 1958.

In 1971, Bob Jones III became president at age 32, though his father, with the title of Chancellor, continued to exercise considerable administrative authority into the late 1990s.[13] At the 2005 commencement, Stephen Jones was installed as the fourth president, and Bob Jones III assumed the title of chancellor.[14] Stephen Jones resigned in 2014 for health reasons, and Steve Pettit was named president, the first unrelated to the Jones family.[15]

In 2011, the university became a member of the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS) and reinstated intercollegiate athletics.[16] In March 2017 the university regained its federal tax exemption after a complicated restructuring divided the organization into for-profit and non-profit entities,[17] and in June it was granted accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.[18]

Academics

The university consists of seven colleges and schools that offer more than 60 undergraduate majors, including fourteen associate degree programs.[19] Many of the University employees consider their positions as much ministries as jobs.[20] It is common for retiring professors to have served the university for thirty, forty, and even occasionally, fifty years, a circumstance that has contributed to the stability and conservatism of an institution of higher learning that has virtually no endowment and at which faculty salaries are "sacrificial".[21][22]

Religious education

School of Religion

The School of Religion includes majors for both men and women, although only men train as ministerial students.[23] Many of these students go on to a seminary after completing their undergraduate education. Others take ministry positions straight from college, and rising juniors participate in a church internship program to prepare them for the pastoral ministry. In 1995 there were 1,290 BJU graduates serving as senior or associate pastors in churches across the United States.[24] In 2017 more than 100 pastors in the Upstate alone were BJU graduates.[25]

The seminary building at Bob Jones University

Position on the King James Version of the Bible

The university uses the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible in its services and classrooms, but it does not hold the KJV to be the only acceptable English translation or that it has the same authority as the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.[26] The King-James-Only Movement—or more correctly, movements, since it has many variations—became a divisive force in fundamentalism as conservative, modern Bible translations, such as the New American Standard Bible (NASB) and the New International Version (NIV), began to appear in the 1970s. BJU has taken the position that orthodox Christians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (including fundamentalists) agreed that while the KJV was a substantially accurate translation, only the original manuscripts of the Bible written in Hebrew and Greek were infallible and inerrant.[27] Bob Jones Jr. called the KJV-only position a "heresy" and "in a very definite sense, a blasphemy".[28]

Fine arts

The Division of Fine Arts has the largest faculty of the university's six undergraduate schools.[29] Each year the university presents an opera in the spring semester and Shakespearean plays in both the fall and spring semesters.[30] A service called "Vespers", presented occasionally throughout the school year, combines music, speech, and drama.[31] The Division of Fine Arts includes an RTV department with a campus radio and television station, WBJU. More than a hundred concerts, recitals, and laboratory theater productions are also presented annually.[32]

Each fall, as a recruiting tool, the university sponsors a "High School Festival" in which students compete in music, art, and speech (including preaching) contests with their peers from around the country.[33] In the spring, a similar competition sponsored by the American Association of Christian Schools, and hosted by BJU since 1977, brings thousands of national finalists to the university from around the country. In 2005, 120 of the finalists from previous years returned to BJU as freshmen.[34]

Science

Howell Memorial Science Building

Bob Jones University supports young-earth creationism,[35] all their biology faculty are young Earth creationists[36] and the university rejects evolution, calling it "at best an unsupportable and unworkable hypothesis".[37]

Between 80% and 100% of the pre-med graduates are accepted to medical school every year.[38] The Department of Biology hosts two research programs on campus, one in cancer research, the other in animal behavior.[39] Although ten of the sixteen members of the science faculty have bachelor's degrees from BJU, all earned their doctorates from accredited, non-religious institutions of higher learning.[40]

The university's nursing major is approved by the South Carolina State Board of Nursing, and a BJU graduate with a BSN is eligible to take the National Council Licensure Examination to become a registered nurse.[41] The BJU engineering program is accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).[42]

Accreditation and rankings

Bob Jones Sr. was leery of academic accreditation almost from the founding of the college, and by the early 1930s, he had publicly stated his opposition to holding regional accreditation.[43] Jones and the college were criticized for this stance, and academic recognition, as well as student and faculty recruitment, were hindered.[44]

In 1944, Jones wrote to John Walvoord of Dallas Theological Seminary that while the university had "no objection to educational work highly standardized…. We, however, cannot conscientiously let some group of educational experts or some committee of experts who may have a behavioristic or atheistic slant on education control or even influence the administrative policies of our college."[45] Five years later, Jones reflected that "it cost us something to stay out of an association, but we stayed out. We have lived up to our convictions."[46] In any case, lack of accreditation seems to have made little difference during the post-war period, when the university more than doubled in size.[44]

Because graduates did not have the benefit of accredited degrees, the faculty felt an increased responsibility to prepare their students.[47] Early in the history of the college, there had been some hesitancy on the part of other institutions to accept BJU credits at face value, but by the 1960s, BJU alumni were being accepted by most of the major graduate and professional schools in the United States.[48] Undoubtedly helpful was that some of the university's strongest programs were in the areas of music, speech, and art, disciplines in which ability could be measured by audition or portfolio rather than through paper qualifications.[49]

Nevertheless, by the early 2000s, the university quietly reexamined its position on accreditation as degree mills proliferated and some government agencies, such as local police departments, began excluding BJU graduates on the grounds that the university did not appear on appropriate federal lists.[49] In 2004, the university began the process of joining the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. Candidate status—effectively, accreditation—was obtained in April 2005, and full membership in the Association was conferred in November 2006.[50] In December 2011, BJU announced its intention to apply for regional accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC), and it received that accreditation in 2017.[51]

In 2014, the Educate to Career College Ranking Index listed BJU as 15th in the nation by economic value.[52][53] In 2017, Schools.com rated BJU as #2 in Best Four-Year College in South Carolina; Niche.com rated it #3 Best Private College in South Carolina; and Christian University Online rated it #3 Most Affordable Christian College in the U.S.[54] In 2017, US News ranked BJU as #61 (tie) in Regional Universities South and #7 in Best Value Schools.[55]

Political involvement

As a twelve-year-old, Bob Jones Sr. made a twenty-minute speech in defense of the Populist Party. Jones was a friend and admirer of William Jennings Bryan but also campaigned throughout the South for Herbert Hoover (and against Al Smith) during the 1928 presidential election. Even the authorized history of BJU notes that both Bob Jones Sr. and Bob Jones Jr. "played political hardball" when dealing with the three municipalities in which the school was successively located. For instance, in 1962, Bob Jones Sr. warned the Greenville City Council that he had "four hundred votes in his pocket and in any election he would have control over who would be elected." [56]

Bob Jones Sr.'s April 17, 1960, Easter Sunday sermon, broadcast on the radio, entitled "Is Segregation Scriptural?" was the University position paper on race in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The transcript was sent in pamphlet form in fund-raising letters and sold in the university bookstore. In the sermon, Jones states "If you are against segregation and against racial separation, then you are against God Almighty." The school began a long history of supporting politicians who were considered aligned with racial segregation.[57][58][59]

Republican Party ties

Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond both played influential roles in the political life of BJU.

From nearly the inception of Bob Jones College, a majority of students and faculty were from the northern United States, where there was a larger ratio of Republicans to Democrats than in the South (which was solidly Democratic). Therefore, almost from its founding year, BJU had a larger portion of Republicans than the surrounding community.[60] After South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond switched his allegiance to the Republican Party in 1964, BJU faculty members became increasingly influential in the new state Republican party, and BJU alumni were elected to local political and party offices. In 1976, candidates supported by BJU faculty and alumni captured the local Republican party with unfortunate short-term political consequences, but by 1980 the religious right and the "country club" Republicans had joined forces.[61] From then on, most Republican candidates for local and statewide offices sought the endorsement of Bob Jones III and greeted faculty/staff voters at the University Dining Common.[62]

National Republicans soon followed. Ronald Reagan spoke at the school in 1980, although the Joneses supported his opponent, John Connally, in the South Carolina primary.[63] Later, Bob Jones III denounced Reagan as "a traitor to God's people" for choosing George H. W. Bush—whom Jones called a "devil"—as his vice president. Even later, Jones III shook Bush's hand and thanked him for being a good president.[64] In the 1990s, other Republicans such as Dan Quayle, Pat Buchanan, Phil Gramm, Bob Dole, and Alan Keyes also spoke at BJU.[65] Democrats were rarely invited to speak at the university, in part because they took political and social positions (especially support for abortion rights) opposed by the Religious Right.[66]

2000 election

On February 2, 2000, then Texas Governor George W. Bush, as a candidate for President, spoke during school's chapel hour.[67] Bush gave a standard stump speech, making no specific reference to the university. His political opponents quickly noted his non-mention of the university's ban on interracial dating. During the Michigan primary, Bush was also criticized for not stating his opposition to the university's anti-Catholicism. The McCain campaign targeted Catholics with "Catholic Voter Alert" phone calls, reminding voters of Bush's visit to BJU.[68] New York Republican congressman Peter King, who was supporting John McCain in the presidential primary, called Bush a tool of "anti-Catholic bigoted forces", after the visit. King described BJU as "an institution that is notorious in Ireland for awarding an honorary doctorate to Northern Ireland's tempestuous Protestant leader, Ian Paisley."[69]Bush denied that he either knew of or approved what he regarded as BJU's intolerant policies. On February 26, Bush issued a formal letter of apology to Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor of New York for failing to denounce Bob Jones University's history of anti-Catholic statements. At a news conference following the letter's release, Bush said, "I make no excuses. I had an opportunity and I missed it. I regret that....I wish I had gotten up then and seized the moment to set a tone, a tone that I had set in Texas, a positive and inclusive tone."[67] Also during the 2000 Republican primary campaign in South Carolina, Richard Hand, a BJU professor, spread a false e-mail rumor that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate child. The McCains have an adopted daughter from Bangladesh, and later push polling also implied that the child was biracial.[70]

Withdrawal from politics

Although the March 2007 issue of Foreign Policy listed BJU as one of "The World's Most Controversial Religious Sites" because of its past influence on American politics,[71] BJU has seen little political controversy since Stephen Jones became president. When asked by a Newsweek reporter if he wished to play a political role, Stephen Jones replied, "It would not be my choice." Further, when asked if he felt ideologically closer to his father's engagement with politics or to other evangelicals who have tried to avoid civic involvement, he answered, "The gospel is for individuals. The main message we have is to individuals. We're not here to save the culture." [72] In a 2005 Washington Post interview, Jones dodged political questions and even admitted that he was embarrassed by "some of the more vitriolic comments" made by his predecessors. "I don't want to get specific," he said, "But there were things said back then that I wouldn't say today."[64] In October 2007 when Bob Jones III, as "a private citizen," endorsed Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination for president, Stephen Jones made it clear that he wished "to stay out of politics" and that neither he nor the university had endorsed anyone.[73] Despite a hotly contested South Carolina primary, none of the candidates appeared on the platform of BJU's Founders' Memorial Amphitorium during the 2008 election cycle.[74] In April 2008 Stephen Jones told a reporter, "I don't think I have a political bone in my body."[75]

Renewed political engagement

In 2015 BJU reemerged as campaign stop of significance for conservative Republicans. Ben Carson and Ted Cruz held large on-campus rallies on two successive days in November; and BJU president Steve Pettit met with Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, and Scott Walker. Jeb Bush, Carson, Cruz, and Rubio also appeared at a 2016 Republican presidential forum at BJU. Chip Felkel, a Greenville Republican consultant, noted that some of the candidates closely identified "with the folks at Bob Jones. So it makes sense for them to want to be there." Nevertheless, unlike BJU's earlier periods of political involvement, Pettit did not endorse a candidate.[76]

According to Furman University political science professor Jim Guth, because Greenville has grown so much recently, it is unlikely BJU will ever again have the same political influence it had between the 1960s and the 1980s. Nevertheless, about a quarter of all BJU graduates continue to live in the Upstate, and as long-time mayor Knox White has said, "The alumni have had a big impact on every profession and walk of life in Greenville."[77]


 

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References

  1. ↑ BJU 2016-17 Annual Report—Advancement, 12.
  2. ↑ Turner, 19
  3. ↑ Turner, 23–25. In the earliest years of the college, important contributions were made to its stability by J. Floyd Collins and Eunice Hutto. Johnson, 180, 198.
  4. ↑ Turner, 68, 101–02.
  5. ↑ https://www.bju.edu/about/history.php%7Ctitle=History of BJU|website=Bob Jones University|language=en-US|access-date=October 10, 2018}}
  6. ↑ Turner, 57–58. On the move to Greenville see John Matzko, "'This Is It, Isn't It, Brother Stone?' The Move of Bob Jones University from Cleveland, Tennessee, to Greenville, 1946–47", South Carolina Historical Magazine, 108 (July 2007), 235–256. The former Cleveland campus currently serves as the home of Lee University, an institution supported by the Church of God.
  7. ↑ Hilde S. Hein, Public Art: Thinking Museums Differently (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006), xxix.
  8. ↑ Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997age=167}}
  9. ↑ Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|page=180}}
  10. ↑ Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|pages=179–188, 253}}
  11. ↑ Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|page=183}} Graham had only three campaigns scheduled that year: London, Berlin, and Greenville, South Carolina.
  12. ↑ "No Bob Jones University dormitory student will be permitted to go to a single meeting of the Greenville crusade. No Bob Jones University adult student, if he is married or lives in town, may attend the crusade and remain as a student." Bob Jones Jr., Chapel talk, February 8, 1965, Mack Library Archives. An exception was made for Bob Jones Academy students who lived in town with their parents.
  13. ↑ Turner, 205.
  14. ↑ BJU website.
  15. ↑ Greenville News, May 9, 2014 Pettit was formally installed as president on September 19, 2014. "Investiture of Stephen D. Pettit as Fifth President of Bob Jones University" Archived September 23, 2014, at the Wayback Machine.; Greenville News, September 20, 2014, 1.
  16. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20140923085815/http://www.bju.edu/about/president/program.pdf |archive-date=September 23, 2014
  17. ↑ http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/education/2017/02/16/bju-regains-nonprofit-status-17-years-after-dropped-discriminatory-policy/98009170/%7Ctitle=Bob Jones University regains nonprofit status 17 years after it dropped discriminatory policy|website=greenvilleonline.com}}
  18. ↑ http://www.bju.edu/news/2017-06-accreditation.php%7Ctitle=BJU Granted Regional Accreditation|website=Bob Jones University}}
  19. ↑ http://www.bju.edu/academics/majors/%7Ctitle=Programs of Study|work=Bob Jones University|access-date=June 14, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131210055420/http://www.bju.edu/academics/majors/%7Carchive-date=December 10, 2013|url-status=dead}}
  20. ↑ Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|pages=251–252}}Wright, Melton|title=Fortress of Faith: The Story of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1984|page=194}}: "Bob Jones University has a scholarly, dedicated faculty who regard teaching as not just a profession but as a Christian calling."
  21. ↑ Voice of the Alumni [publication of the BJU Alumni Association], 1996–2006. In 1993, the CFO Roy Barton said that teachers' salaries were kept as "low as possible in order to offer affordable higher education to Christians". Barton said he could name "dozens of people who work here for half or a third of what they could be earning on the outside, but they are here because of a desire to be part of the ministry of training young people". Greenville News, April 18, 1993, "Upstate Business", 11. In the same Greenville News issue, Bob Jones III said, "Everyone here is like a missionary." (10)
  22. ↑ In fiscal year 2016-17, not even 1% of BJU operating expenses were covered by endowments, and total giving was less than $9 million. BJU 2016-17 Annual Report—Advancement, 21.
  23. ↑ BJU School of Religion.
  24. ↑ Dalhouse, Mark Taylor|title=An Island in the Lake of Fire: Bob Jones University, Fundamentalism & the Separatist Movement|pages=148–151}}
  25. ↑ Greenville Journal, April 14, 2017, 16
  26. ↑ Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997| pages=244–245}} "Statement about Bible Translations", BJU website. Archived October 20, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  27. ↑ Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997
  28. ↑ Jones Jr., Bob|title=Cornbread and Caviar|page=179}}
  29. ↑ Of about 350 faculty members listed in the 2007–08 catalog, around a hundred, or roughly 30% taught in the Division of Fine Arts. Bob Jones University Catalog, 2007–08, 341–47.
  30. ↑ Concert, opera, & drama series, BJU website Archived February 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.. In 2011 the university won second place in the professional division of the National Opera Association 2009-10 video competition for its production of Samson et Dalila. NOA website.
  31. ↑ Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|pages=87–89, 191}}. Turner gives a detailed description of the development of Vespers from a recital potpourri to a themed program with a specific Christian message. BJU website Archived March 12, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  32. ↑ "Investing in Lives for Eternity", BJU Advancement brochure (2008), 6, Bob Jones University Archives, Mack Library. Undergraduate university students taking six or more credit hours are required to attend the two or three Concert, Opera & Drama Series programs given each semester. BJU website.
  33. ↑ High school students to compete in Fall Festival Archived March 30, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. Article from BJU website by Jeanne Petrizzo describing the festival
  34. ↑ BJU Collegian article from BJU website Archived March 30, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  35. ↑ http://www.bju.edu/academics/college-and-schools/arts-and-science/natural-science/creation/gap.php | title=Gap Theory Statement | publisher=Bob Jones University | year=2013 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120428055404/http://www.bju.edu/academics/college-and-schools/arts-and-science/natural-science/creation/gap.php | archive-date=April 28, 2012 }}
  36. ↑ http://www.bju.edu/academics/majors/biology/ | title=Biology | publisher=Bob Jones University | year=2013 | access-date=March 11, 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130407143452/http://www.bju.edu/academics/majors/biology/ | archive-date=April 7, 2013 | url-status=dead }}
  37. ↑ http://www.bju.edu/academics/college-and-schools/arts-and-science/natural-science/teaching-science/distinctiveness.php | title=Teaching Science: Distinctiveness | publisher=Bob Jones University | year=2013 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140113012242/http://www.bju.edu/academics/college-and-schools/arts-and-science/natural-science/teaching-science/distinctiveness.php | archive-date=January 13, 2014 }}
  38. ↑ http://www.bju.edu/academics/programs/premed-predent/%7Ctitle=Premed/Predent%7Cwork=Bob Jones University|access-date=June 14, 2015}}
  39. ↑ http://www.bju.edu/academics/programs/biology/%7Ctitle=Biology%7Cwork=Bob Jones University|access-date=June 14, 2015}}
  40. ↑ http://www.bju.edu/academics/faculty/bydivision.php?id=1119%7Ctitle=Faculty – Division of Natural Science|work=Bob Jones University|access-date=June 14, 2015}}
  41. ↑ Bob Jones University Catalog, 2007–08, 90.
  42. ↑ http://blogs.bju.edu/pr/2013/08/07/bju-engineering-program-earns-abet-accreditation/ |title=BJU Engineering Program Earns ABET Accreditation | BJU Public Relations |publisher=Blogs.bju.edu |date=August 7, 2013 |access-date=August 15, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140807024119/http://blogs.bju.edu/pr/2013/08/07/bju-engineering-program-earns-abet-accreditation/ |archive-date=August 7, 2014 |url-status=dead }}
  43. ↑ However, in the earliest college catalog (called "An Epoch in Education") Jones wrote, "Having met all the requirements, we have made application for admission to the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools." (32)
  44. ↑ a b Turner|first=Daniel|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|page=68}}
  45. ↑ Jones to Walwoord, May 8, 1944 in Turner|first=Daniel|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|pages=354–355}}
  46. ↑ Jones to James O. Buswell, May 12, 1949, in Turner|first=Daniel|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|page=68}}
  47. ↑ Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|page=203}}
  48. ↑ "BJU's reputation in academic circles gradually became more respected for the intellectual preparation and strong character of its graduates. By the 1960s several graduate schools actively courted university alumni, and BJU graduates were accepted into most of the major graduate programs in the country despite the school's opposition to regional accreditation." Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|pages=203, 353–355}}
  49. ↑ a b Michael Collins, "Accreditation at Bob Jones University" (2007), unpublished paper, Bob Jones University Archives, Mack Library.
  50. ↑ BJU is also a founding member of the American Association of Christian Colleges and Seminaries, a small group of institutions "clearly identified with the historic Christian fundamentalist tradition".American Association of Christian Colleges and Seminaries Archived April 30, 2013, at the Wayback Machine..
  51. ↑ Greenville News, December 7, 2011; Paul Hyde, "Bob Jones University earns accreditation, boosting prestige," Greenville News, June 15, 2017, 1. The university said that "significant changes" in SACS' approach to accreditation, including "respect [for] the stated mission of the institution, including religious mission" had addressed its earlier concerns about regional accreditation. BJU website Archived December 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine..
  52. ↑ "BJU ranked as 15th-best value", Greenville News, September 8, 2014, 3A; www.educatetocareer.org.
  53. ↑ http://www.bju.edu/news/2017-06-accreditation.php BJU website.
  54. ↑ BJU 2016-17 Annual Report—Advancement, 17.
  55. ↑ US News website.
  56. ↑ Turner, Daniel L.|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|publisher=BJU Press|year=1997|pages=3, 10, 78, 246, 428}}
  57. ↑ Manis|first1=Andrew M.|title=Southern civil religions in conflict : civil rights and the culture wars|date=2002|publisher=Mercer University Press|location=Macon, Ga.|isbn=0865547963}}
  58. ↑ https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/evangelical-history/2016/07/26/is-segregation-scriptural-a-radio-address-from-bob-jones-on-easter-of-1960/%7Ctitle=Is Segregation Scriptural? A Radio Address from Bob Jones on Easter of 1960|website=thegospelcoalition.org}}
  59. ↑ http://samanthabee.com/dr-bob-jones-sr-is-segregation-scriptural/
  60. ↑ Turner, 246; Interviews of Mary Gaston Stollenwerck Jones by Margaret Beall Tice, (September–October 1973), University Archives, Mack Library, BJU. Bob Jones Sr. had held many evangelistic campaigns in the North prior to founding the college, and he correctly guessed that a new college in Florida would be more attractive to northerners than a new college in his home state of Alabama.
  61. ↑ Alan Ehrenhalt, The United States of Ambition: Politicians, Power and the Pursuit of Office (New York: Random House, 1991), 98-99. "With its factions bitterly opposed to each other, the Republican party lost virtually all its state legislative seats in Greenville County, even as Gerard Ford was carrying the county against Jimmy Carter by more than 3,000 votes." (98)
  62. ↑ "As late as 1978 the state representative for most of the Bob Jones precincts was Sylvia Dreyfus, a liberal Jewish Democrat. That does not happen anymore. These days, when elections are held in the districts that surround the university, anybody who does not have a Bob Jones connection does not have a realistic chance." Ehrenhalt, 99.
  63. ↑ "GOP debaters politick in state," Greenville News, February 29, 1980. Reagan said he was "surprised" by Jones's endorsement of Connally.
  64. ↑ a b https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/04/AR2005050402413.html%7Ctitle=Taking the Bob Out of Bob Jones U.|first=Peter|last=Carlson|date=May 5, 2005|work=Washington Post}}
  65. ↑ Turner|first=Daniel|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|page=248}}
  66. ↑ Turner|first=Daniel|title=Standing Without Apology: The History of Bob Jones University|pages=246–248}}. As Bob Jones Jr. wrote in his memoirs, "While the lecture platform of Bob Jones University will never be open to dishonest Liberals like Ted Kennedy, conservative politicians and honorable statesmen have been speaking from that platform for many years." Jones Jr., Bob|title=Cornbread and Caviar|publisher=BJU Press|year=1985|page=197}}
  67. ↑ a b New York Times website Archived May 17, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.
  68. ↑ CNN website Archived December 13, 2004, at the Wayback Machine.
  69. ↑ http://www.nysun.com/national/rep-king-and-the-ira-the-end-of-an-extraordinary/15853%7Ctitle=Rep. King and the IRA: The End of an Extraordinary Affair?|date=June 25, 2005|first=Ed|last=Moloney}}
  70. ↑ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0002/14/ip.00.html%7Ctitle=CNN Transcript - Inside Politics: GOP Candidates Trade Vitriol Instead of Valentines; Bush Firewall in Danger in Michigan; Bradley Lashes Out at Gore Over Policy Distortions - February 14, 2000|website=transcripts.cnn.com}}
  71. ↑ "The World's Most Controversial Religious Sites". The others mentioned were the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo; Potala Palace in Tibet; Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh state, India; and the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem.
  72. ↑ Susannah Meadows, "Passing the Torch at Bob Jones U." Newsweek "Web Exclusive" [MSNBC link expired], January 29, 2005, hard copy at Fundamentalist File, Mack Library, BJU[dead link].
  73. ↑ Greenville News, October 21, 2007[dead link].
  74. ↑ Candidate Ron Paul did speak in a large classroom to an overflow crowd. BJU's vice president for administration said, "We purposefully chose a room in the Alumni building because we do not want candidates to hold rallies on campus. We want interested students, faculty and staff to benefit from the educational experience of listening to a candidate, and hopefully, as a result, be able to make a more informed voting decision." BJU Collegian, January 25, 2008.
  75. ↑ Greenville Journal (April 4, 2008), 32.
  76. ↑ Tim Smith and Rudolph Bell, "Bob Jones University Back in Political Limelight," Greenville News, November 15, 2015, 1, 4;Reid J. Epstein, "GOP Candidates Return to Bob Jones University as Party Shifts Right," Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2015; Nathaniel Cary, "GOP candidates headed to forum at BJU," Greenville News, January 30, 2016, 1A, 4A; "Trump, Kasich no-shows at BJU presidential forum," Greenville News, January 13, 2016, 1.
  77. ↑ Greenville Journal, April 14, 2017, 16.
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