Samford University’s founders dedicated themselves to forming an institution of “high character.”
“That promise is renewed each year as seniors graduate and new students join their lives with ours to create a very special community of learning and faith,” says Samford President Andrew Westmoreland, as he looks to welcome some 840 freshmen and undergraduate transfer students this fall, making for an expected total student body of about 4,700.
Even as enrollment from Alabama remains steady and strong, he notes, the school’s national reputation for providing quality higher education is reflected in the number of students coming from across the country and throughout the world.
This fall, students from about 60 of Alabama’s 67 counties will be joined by classmates from some 43 states and more than a dozen foreign nations. Included in the mix will be 10 students from mainland China and Taiwan who will study in Samford’s master of science in environmental management program.
While at Samford, the students will develop skills and knowledge to contribute to China’s critical need for better environmental management and stewardship. In turn, their presence will expand the international diversity on campus.
The new link with the Asian nation underscores the strength of Samford’s graduate and professional programs that are growing in national and international reputation.
The Alabama Baptists who founded Samford in 1841 would be pleased that the stated mission of today’s leaders is to nurture persons in their development of intellect, creativity, faith and personhood. And furthermore, as a Christian university, Samford seeks to foster academic, career and ethical competency while encouraging social and civic responsibility and service to others.
Samford’s attention to learning and professional development regularly garners recognition from the academic community. Recent accolades include:
- Selection as one of the nation’s 50 “Best-Value” four-year private universities in the annual USA Today Princeton Review listing.
- For the third straight year, ranked in the top tier of national doctoral research universities, according to the annual college rankings released by U.S. News & World Report.
- Inclusion in the 2011 edition of The Princeton Review’s popular guidebook, “The Best 371 Colleges” as one of the nation’s best institutions for undergraduate education.
Samford’s Ida V. Moffett School of Nursing recently received grants and scholarship funding totaling almost $500,000. The available monies will help the school recruit students underrepresented in nursing, including men and minorities, and graduate students pursuing an advanced degree so as to become a nursing educator.
Campuswide, dedicated faculty members cultivate a climate of scholarship and creative activity that brings acclaim to them and the school, and results in special academic opportunities for their students. Programs to be unveiled during the new academic year include:
- A religion and science program that will help frame teaching and research in the sciences and mathematics by the “big questions” of meaning and value.
- A church music curriculum that will focus on worship leadership.
- A Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Institute that will allow enhanced faculty/student research using a mass spectrometry laboratory.
As a vibrant community of Christian faith and service, Samford regularly hosts gatherings that bring church leaders and lay persons to campus for workshops and programs on varied topics.
At the same time, Samford actively sends forth faculty, staff and students on missions endeavors and social ministry projects throughout the year.
Whether a visit to an Alabama Baptist pulpit by Dr. Westmoreland, a “hands-on” day of service in a struggling Birmingham neighborhood or a student missions trip to Malaysia, a commitment to living the faith is readily evident.
Samford promotes intercultural and international understanding in ways both academic — such as study abroad opportunities at its Daniel House in London and other foreign sites — and missional — such as recent cross-cultural immersions in which students collaborated with nationals ministering in China and India. Hundreds of Samford students annually engage in missions trips sponsored by the school or arranged on their own. The summer of 2010 found more than 100 students sharing the gospel in six states and 30 countries, in locales ranging from an impoverished area of eastern Kentucky to an orphanage in Romania.
Eight students, led by university ministries staff members Brian and Renee Pitts, were in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where they introduced local college students to Connexion Bandar Utama, an international student ministry in the city.
“We learned a great deal about the complexities of Malaysian culture, with its diversity of religious and ethnic groups mingling together in a country with a Muslim majority,” said Renee Pitts.
While encouraged by the Christians they met and their personal commitment to living out their faith, said Pitts, “We were also challenged by the task of relational evangelism in a context where it often takes many months or even years to decide to convert to Christian faith from another religious tradition.”
Such experiences change the lives of Samford students and possibly the lives of students a world away, forever.
To learn more about Samford, check the website at www.samford.edu. (SU)
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