Bethel College & Seminary becomes Bethel University

After 133 years in education, Bethel College & Seminary is celebrating a new degree of prestige as its governing council approved a name change to Bethel University.

The June vote of the Bethel College & Seminary corporation followed a recommendation by the school’s board of trustees.

“For all of its 133 years of history, Bethel has been a dynamic educational institution, embracing growth, expanding programs and services, and restructuring when necessary to fulfill its mission better,” Bethel President George K. Brushaber said in a news release. “Its names across the last 90 years—Bethel Academy and Theological Seminary, Bethel Institute, Bethel Junior College and Seminary, and Bethel College & Seminary—reflect this fact. Bethel University is the next step in a continuing tradition of dynamic growth and adaptability.”

Although there are no official criteria for becoming a “university,” administrators said the term reflects more accurately what Bethel has already become, an academically rich, internationally known institution. The university structure, they said, will offer Bethel greater potential to realize its vision. While sharing central support services, specialized academic units will have both greater autonomy and increased financial accountability under a university model.

“It won’t change the quality of the coursework or the professionalism of the professors,” the director said.

Campbell she said she’s hopeful the name change will become a new recruiting tool for the campus.

“We’re hoping that it will invite worldwide exposure, people that need to have that university name,” the local administrator said. “The word university seems to speak of a larger, uniform entity. I think it’s the perception of prestige more than anything else.”

The entire Bethel University system has more than 4,000 students from 26 countries enrolled in undergraduate, graduate, seminary, and adult education programs. Based in St. Paul, Minn., with additional seminary locations on both coasts, Bethel University offers majors, minors, and advanced degrees in nearly 100 fields. Programs, administrators said, are taught by renowned faculty within a distinctly evangelical Christian framework, equipping women and men for culturally sensitive leadership, scholarship, and service around the world. Bethel University is sponsored by the churches of the Baptist General Conference.

“Bethel’s longstanding vision will continue to be a world-class Christian university preparing women and men for strategic involvement at the highest levels of influence in the church and society,” Brushaber, the university president, said. “To that end, Bethel will remain a top-quality private institution committed to a distinctly evangelical Christian philosophy of education.”

Although the name change may take a while for the public to get used to, Campbell said the process has been ongoing.

“It’s been on the front burner for quite some time,” she said. “It takes a lot to change a college to a university. You don’t just change it. It’s a long process. There are a lot of requirements. It’s not something you do over a cup of coffee. But you can have a cup of coffee afterward to celebrate.”

Published, August 2004

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