The Vision: Past, Present & Future

THE ORU VISION

Raise up your students to hear My voice, to go where My light is seen dim, My voice is heard small, My healing power is not known, even to the uttermost bounds of the earth. Their work will exceed yours. In that I am well pleased.

Following the Vision
The vision that created Oral Roberts University still drives it four decades later: to build a university where generations of leaders are challenged academically, grown spiritually, and refined physically into instruments through whom God can change the world. Forty years after Oral Roberts founded the school, ORU stands uniquely positioned to develop leaders who hear God’s voice with a responsive spirit, an active mind, and a healthy body. Through a structured, nurturing environment, students at Oral Roberts University are challenged in a variety of academic disciplines. The school’s 63 majors — as well as an extensive leadership-development program — make ORU a leader in many fields, including business, mass communications, biology, psychology, and Christian ministry. But much more than mere academic training, the product of an education at Oral Roberts University is nothing less than a life transformed — the whole person educated so that the whole world might be changed.

Preparing to Lead
Each Christian is uniquely shaped — divinely gifted for God’s purpose — so the essential mission of Oral Roberts University lies in developing God’s gifts and uncovering God’s purpose in each student. Like any refining process — or any upward climb — the path involves rigor. Students are expected to dress and behave appropriately, as they would in any job. Class attendance is mandatory, as are twice-weekly chapel sessions. In class, students are challenged by an outstanding faculty dedicated to developing their intellect, and much more.

Shaping the Whole Person
At most universities, the body is ignored and the spirit is denied, leaving the pursuit of the mind without balance. But humanity is more than intellect, having a triune nature of mind, body, and spirit. From its earliest days, Oral Roberts University has sought to reach the whole world by addressing the whole person — producing students who are spiritually alive, intellectually alert, physically disciplined, and socially adept.

In addition to rigorous academics and emphasis on the spiritual life, students must complete a health and physical education course every semester and pass rigorous aerobic fitness tests before graduating. After all, it’s hard for the spirit to run like the wind when the body has to stop to catch its breath.

Transforming Students to Change the World
Every year, thousands of students from every region of the country and from dozens of nations come to ORU for a university education and much more.

In just about any walk of life from business to the arts to politics to ministry, graduates of Oral Roberts University are making a big difference right now. And thousands more are still growing under ORU’s nurturing wing. The embers of their passion wait to be ignited into a flame the whole world will see. For when students are given a vision for what God can accomplish through their lives — when the spirit is set in motion, the body is challenged, and the mind is refined — only God knows what mighty things He will accomplish. Oral Roberts University is about changing lives. It’s about changing the world.

Founded in 1963 by evangelist Oral Roberts, ORU is unlike any university on the face of the earth. It’s interdenominational. It’s unashamedly Christian. It’s liberal arts at a time when academia is admitting that students need a broader base upon which to build their careers. It’s visionary, because it seeks to educate the whole person—not just the mind, but the body and the spirit. It’s…different.

When a student graduates from ORU, he has more than a diploma to show for his efforts. If he has applied himself, he will leave this campus “spiritually alive, intellectually alert, physically disciplined, and socially adept.”

Believing that Jesus Christ—the only perfect Man who ever walked the earth—has shown us how we should live our lives, ORU pushes its students to follow His example and give their best in the classroom, in physical education, in relationships with others, and, most important of all, in their relationship with God. Sixty-three undergraduate majors, graduate programs in business, education, and theology, intramurals and NCAA Division I sports, and spiritual life activities that include chapel and dorm devotionals, offer ORU students every opportunity to set high goals, work hard, and make the most of the time God has given them to serve Him in this life.

You’ll find the same strong academics at ORU that you would find at any esteemed private university in America. Part of “the ORU Difference,” of course, is the faculty…men and women who aren’t just well-versed in their subject matter, but who have compassion and concern for the spiritual well-being of their students. At ORU, it’s not unusual to see a faculty member praying for a student—or a student praying for a faculty member. An attitude of mutual respect sets the tone in faculty/student encounters.

In the Tulsa community, ORU is known for its community outreach program. Through this, students give more than 14,000 hours of volunteer service per year to more than 40 ministries that touch the lives of children, youth, immigrants, the elderly, the incarcerated, the homeless, and the mentally ill. Back in 2002, ORU recognized that if students were going to decide to make community service part of their lifestyle, it needed to be more than an extracurricular activity. It needed to be brought into the classroom so that faculty members and students could plan and carry out service activities together, learn from the experience, and increase their effectiveness year after year.

That desire to “do more/do better” resulted in the new Service Learning program. Faculty members and students have taken on a number of projects in the economically challenged South Peoria section of Tulsa. These include: offering an after-school art program, teaching a citizenship course for Hispanics as well as English As A Second Language classes, conducting “character education” classes in three low-income apartment complexes, developing a recreation program for children and youth, organizing support groups for the mentally disabled, and helping small-business owners improve their companies’ profile.

Service Learning isn’t the only recent addition to ORU’s list of opportunities. The Honors program, initiated in the fall of 2001, attracts some of the nation’s best students who, of course, help perpetuate “the ORU Difference”: along with sharp minds and a desire to be physically fit, they are set on using their considerable gifts and skills to serve God. The Writing Across the Disciplines program ensures that writing is a part of every area of study—including math and HPE. The Christian Worldview program alerts students to the seductions of modern society and the need to stand up and be counted as men and women of God. A strengths-based advisement system helps students determine not just where their talents lie, but what their passion is, so that they can choose the correct career path.

In addition to the aforementioned community outreach program, ORU sends students out on missions trips. In the summertime, hundreds of students put aside jobs and relaxation to serve God on foreign soil in one-week-to-one-month-long adventures. Closer to home, ORU conducts an annual Halloween canned-food drive and a Family Christmas concert where the price of admission is a canned good or a new toy, items which are distributed to the needy.

A solid spiritual grounding is essential for students who will someday serve God in a host of professions, from business and the arts to politics and athletics. Through twice-weekly chapel services, Sunday-night campus church, music ministries, wing devotions, regular Sunday-morning church attendance, and retreats, ORU students figure out exactly what they believe and why they believe it. They learn to work out their faith and answer those who would ask, “Why Jesus?”

From the beginning, ORU has been primarily a residential campus, with students living in residence halls. The experience is enriched by “brother-sister wings,” which are ORU’s answer to fraternities and sororities. Brother-sister wings might eat meals together, go on retreats or have devotions together, attend sports events or study together—there are lots of possibilities.

ORU students are always looking for ways to sharpen their social, job, and leadership skills. Campus opportunities include student government, musical and drama performance groups, more than 50 academic and special-interest clubs, The Oracle (student newspaper), The Perihelion (yearbook), KORU (radio station), and educational or ministry television programs (such as The Hour of Healing and Make Your Day Count).

Of course, ORU isn’t all work and no play. That’s where Golden Eagle athletics come into the picture. As a member of the Mid-Continent Conference, ORU athletes compete in eight NCAA Division I men’s and women’s sports: baseball, basketball, cross-country, golf, indoor and outdoor track, soccer, tennis, and volleyball. Students also enjoy a long list of intramural sports, such as flag football and soccer.

What happens to ORU students once they graduate? Many stay in the Tulsa area…and make quite an impression on their bosses, from what we’ve heard. According to a survey of Tulsa-area employers commissioned by the Tulsa Metro Chamber of Commerce, ORU ranks first in “Quality of Graduates” from high schools, colleges, universities, and technology/technical centers in Northeast Oklahoma. About 4,500 alumni live in the Tulsa metropolitan area, with another 33,500 around the world.

ORU alumni have become bestselling authors, won Emmy awards, been nominated for

Pulitzer Prizes, become college presidents, won public office, been named “Teacher of the Year,” won the Miss Oklahoma pageant, hosted television programs, started their own companies, and competed in the Olympics. Others homeschool their children, teach in public and private schools, work as accountants, provide medical, nursing, or dental care, or serve their clients well at a host of law firms.

Most important of all, ORU graduates have taken seriously the mission of ORU by listening to God’s voice, “going where His light is seen dim, His voice is heard small, and His healing power is not known,” and making a difference in the world—in individual lives—that will count for eternity.