ANDREWS UNIVERSITY is a hub of activity, learning, and many cultures as each year hundreds of students come to its campus from all over the world. All the States of the Union and, in some years, as many as 70 other countries and U.S. territories are represented on its large campus that comprises more than fourteen-hundred acres of woodland, farmland, and scenic river views.
Three commencement convocations each year send these students out again from the campus to the ends of the earth with added expertise in carrying the gospel to every kindred, tongue, and people.
It is the purpose of Andrews University to prepare its graduates to enter the work of witnessing for Christ in the many areas of human need around the world. Seventh-day Adventist education is built on a God-Creator basis and the philosophy that nothing in life is of greater significance than man's relationship to Cod, who created him and who sustains him in life. With this premise, Andrews takes the stand that no man can be truly educated without learning to love God and to serve Him.
With these ideals and aims in mind, Andrews strives to educate the whole man, to help him strive for spiritual maturity, mental excellence, for physical well-being and social adjustment.
Since a university's objectives find expression in its organized curricula and the activities it sponsors, education here ranges from formal classroom instruction to the many informal involvements of campus life and the large number of outreach activities in surrounding communities.
New this year for graduate students is a program leading to the Doctor of Education degree offered through the School of Graduate Studies, with concentrations in educational administration, educational psychology and counseling, and in religious education.
Other degree programs from the school are the Master of Arts in seven areas, the Master of Arts in Teaching in fourteen areas, the Master of Business Administration, and the Master of Music. Also a non-degree program leading to the Fifth-Year Diploma in Education is offered for teachers who do not elect to pursue a Master's sequence.
From the Theological Seminary, programs are offered leading to the degrees of Master of Divinity, Master of Theology, Doctor of Ministry, and Doctor of Theology.
One of the newer courses of study at the Seminary is "Church and Urban Affairs." The program is particularly designed to help ministers develop the necessary skills to serve the Adventist Church in metropolitan areas, and requires not only classroom studies but also field experience in nearby urban counties.
Another area of growing inter est among seminarians is a study of the nature and function of ministry as it relates to the integration of the work of the healing agencies of the church and community with the traditional forms of pastoral ministry. In keeping with this idea, a joint program offering a Master of Divinity and a Master of Science in Public Health has been established by the Theological Seminary at Andrews and the School of Health of Loma Linda University.
Nor does Andrews keep its offerings isolated on campus. It conducts numerous extension schools each year in various parts of the world where persons may study in the setting of their own language and culture and people.
Augmenting study facilities at Andrews is the James White Library with current holdings of more than 300,000 volumes and 32,064 microforms, plus many unbound journals, pamphlets, audio-media, photostats, and other types of library materials. Microcard and microfilm equipment afford access to valuable out-of-print books and materials. A subscription list of 2,632 periodicals covers all major fields of knowledge. Within the university collection, the Seminary Library constitutes a separately identifiable collection of approximately 81,000 volumes and carries a subscription list of 650 periodicals.
Other resource material is to be found in the Heritage Room of rare-book collections and its thousands of items dealing with the origins of Adventists and the history of the doctrine of conditional immortality. And located in the Seminary building is the Ellen G. White Publications Vault, which contains copies of 60,000 letters and manuscripts of Ellen G. White, along with 4,600 of her published articles and thousands of pages of other documents related to the early development of the Adventist Church.
Moreover, education at Andrews is escalated by research centers located on or near the campus. One such center is the Geoscience Research Institute operated by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which investigates evidence relative to the geology of the earth and the existence of life within a conservative Christian context. Its research staff and library of geologic and related materials provide opportunity and facilities for research and classwork.
Another such facility is the Hewitt Research Center, an endowed organization dedicated to efficiency and effectiveness of tax-supported and gift-supported institutions and agencies; it deals primarily in health, education, and welfare areas.
Besides the classroom work and research potential at Andrews, the university holds many work shops and conferences in various areas of interest and learning for which research personnel from around the world lecture and advise.
But Andrews is not all course offerings, research, and learning. It is a way of life! It is a walk down the avenue of flags of different nations and having concourse with the people of those flags, both students and teachers; it is experiencing spiritual communion in a stately church dedicated as a house of prayer for all peoples; it is strolling on the well-kept cam pus in the framework of four challenging seasons each with a particular beauty peculiar to the heartland of America; it is knowing the kindness and helpfulness of understanding professors; it is the forming of lifetime friends and associations. It is a place where one feels the touch of God's hand on his and where one is inspired by the meeting of convergent minds as he strives to better himself for the service of the Master.
Andrews students come from all over the world and are given an education designed to enable them to serve the needs of their church and the interests of man kind everywhere in the world.
