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Liberty University

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Liberty University is a Christian liberal arts university in Lynchburg, Virginia. It was founded as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971 by conservative Christian Jerry Falwell, who is also the Senior Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church.

Religious foundation

Rev. Falwell's vision is to build a university as large as Notre Dame and Brigham Young University, with 25,000 students on campus and another 25,000 in Distance Learning Program. The institution has faced a series of financial crises over the years, but total enrollment have increased by 8000 students (undergraduate, graduate, and distance learning) in the past 5 years - a 74% increase. With approximately 9,000 students on campus and 10,000 in the Distance Learning Program, Liberty has found alternative ways to balance its budget. In 2005 Liberty University finally put the financial woes of the 1980s and 90s behind them, and according to a recent IRS 990 filing, now pulls in $12 million of surplus revenue annually. In 1992 Liberty University had over $83 million dollars of debt, which has been reduced by the combined efforts of Jimmy Thomas and Dan Reber, businessmen from Forest, Virginia, and insurance tycoon Art Williams - who forgave around 50 million dollars of Liberty’s debt. A number of other benefactors reduced the debt an additional 10 million. The remaining debt was whittled away through the installment of a financial management team, the reduction of in-house scholarships, and an increase in tuition. In the past five years residential student tuition has increased by $5,000.

Students who live on campus attend convocation three times per week where they learn from speakers in all walks of professional life. Past speakers have included Leonard Davidson, Sam Donaldson, George H. W. Bush, John R. Rice, Ronald Reagan, Oliver North, Jesse Jackson, Skip Erickson, Freddie Gage, Billy Graham and Sean Hannity.

Liberty University continues to invest, with 19 new dormitory buildings and a tunnel connecting the east and west ends of the campus completed for the fall semester of 2004. Other projects include the completion of the new LaHaye Student Center, the moving of Thomas Road Church and Lynchburg Christian Academy (now Liberty Christian Academy) to a property adjacent to the Main Campus, the expansion of student activity facilities, and a new Law School and Library, and a brand new Ice Hockey rink which was donated by Drs. Tim and Beverly LaHaye. The University has official ties with Thomas Road Baptist Church, the church that founded the University. Rev. Falwell has repeatedly emphasized the important partnership between the two institutions.

The university has a strict code of student behavior, documented in "The Liberty Way", including possible reprimands (and with the accumulation of reprimands, fines) for attending dances, viewing R-rated movies, kissing, drinking, and participating in unauthorized petitions. On several occasions Falwell has described it as 'Bible Boot Camp.' He still exhorts Liberty's students to burn it down if it 'ever turns liberal'. In the summer of 2005, the university announced that it was slightly relaxing its 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. Faculty members work under a contract requiring them to abide by similar behavioral codes.

Utilizing 'non-tenured teaching faculty' is 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' (sic).

Academics

Liberty University started a new graduate program in Communication Studies in 2004. The Master of Arts in Communication Studies accepted its first class in 2004 and was approved by the SACS accrediting body in November 2004.

U.S. News & World Report ranked Liberty University in the 4th tier of Southern Master's Universities. The magazine ranked its selectivity as "Less Selective." With tuition and annual fees of over $13,000, excluding room and board, it is the most expensive university in its class, costing over twice the average of other universities in its ranking. Liberty Univeristy started a law program in the academic year of 2005, and received provisional acredidation in early 2006.

Extracurricular activities

Sports

The University is a member of the Division I level Big South Conference for 17 sports. The other eight members include Birmingham Southern College and Winthrop University. The University regularly competes for the Sasser Cup which is the Big South's trophy for the university which has the winningest sports program among the member institutions. Liberty has won the Sasser Cup five times, second only to Coastal Carolina, which has won it seven times.

The University gained some media attention in the winter of 2005 when the women's basketball team, the Lady Flames, made the NCAA Sweet Sixteen and were labelled a "Cinderella Team". After defeating fourth-seeded Penn State and fifth-seeded DePaul, the Flames' winning streak was halted by top seeded Louisiana State University.

Mock trial

Liberty University recently went 3-1 in the American College Mock Trial Competition in Gettysburg, PA, after going 0-4 the year before. Turned around in part by their legendary coach Grant Rost and strong performances by Joshua Prather, Brian Colas, and David Ernest, they also won the AMTA integrity award, losing both ballots only to the Ivy-League Cornell university.

Debate

Liberty is also known for its Inter-Collegiate policy debate program. Led by Brett O'Donnell, Liberty was ranked number one overall in the National Debate Tournament in the fall of 2005. The touting of this by Liberty has lead to some controversy, as the overall ranking included results for novice debates. In varsity rankings, Liberty was twentieth.

Liberty has a long tradition as one of the best schools for debaters without previous debate experience (novices). Realizing that debate’s primary mission is educational, the debate community rightly established a ranking system that rewards programs that excel at teaching students of all experience levels. Program success is not, nor should it be, measured by “how they finish in the NDT or CEDA nationals and in the big tournaments throughout the year.” In fact, while the NDT has a separate ranking for the varsity division (of which Liberty has appeared in the top 10 on multiple occasions), the CEDA rankings make no such distinction for precisely that reason.

Quiz bowl

Liberty has also recently begun to participate in the Big South Conference Quiz Bowl competition. In their first tournament at VMI in February of 2006, the Liberty team swept the tournament, and won the competition 8-0 against the other major schools in the Big South Conference. The Liberty team was made up of students from the large Honors Program.

Notable alumni

External links

Categroy:Christian schools

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