1963-Present
Judson University
Elgin Illinois IL
It is hard to determine if the founding date for Judson University should be 1913 or 1963. American Baptists had longed for an academic presence in Chicagoland founding the “old” University of Chicago in 1856 and supporting it minimally until its demise in 1886. By 1860 the Baptist Theological Union was begun as the first Baptist seminary in the region and was originally housed in the First Baptist Church of Chicago. The seminary eventually found property in the Morgan Park neighborhood, moved there and became casually known as “Morgan Park Seminary”. From day one the Baptist Theological Union had to provide training at the undergraduate level for persons wanting to attend seminary. Originally, these students studied at the “old” University of Chicago until it closed in 1886.
The new and present University of Chicago was born in 1890 with millions of dollars from John D. Rockefeller. The Baptist Theological Union moved from Morgan Park to become the divinity school at the new University of Chicago. The beginning embers of the modernist-fundamentalist movement were stoked into a raging flame by a book authored by professor George B. Foster at the University of Chicago entitled The Finality of the Christian Religion. Out of that controversy came the Illinois Baptist State Association (now aligned with Southern Baptists) and the call for a new and more conservative seminary.[1]
Thus, after many years and after many fits and starts Northern Baptist Theological Seminary was born in 1913, one hundred years after Adoniram Judson landed in Burma. From its beginning, the seminary had an undergraduate division because many of the students responding to a call to ministry, arrived at the seminary without an undergraduate education. At many points during its first 50 years, the undergraduate division and its correspondence school had a larger enrollment than did the seminary. “For the fall of 1962 there were 88 students in the graduate school and 93 in the college, for a total of 181 students.”[2]
Historian Lawrence T. Slaght reports the events like this:
By 1969, however, it was clear that the neighborhood surrounding the school [Northern Seminary] was so rapidly changing that the area was no longer satisfactory for a theological school. Furthermore, the pretheological department, still important for the training of students prior to their graduate divinity work, was proving to be a stumbling block in some academic circles. So with bold and sudden strokes, the trustees made several decisions….they would ask Benjamin P. Browne of the Publication Society to become administrator.
The coming of Dr. Browne was accomplished by vigorous activity. The old campus was sold and a new location was secured at Oak Brook, Illinois. The college department was given independent status with a separate administration and board of trustees. A home for this new liberal arts college to be knows as Judson, was found at Elgin, Illinois, and a new beautifully designed campus was built. In 1970 Northern Seminary listed an enrollment of forty-five occupied a lovely new campus valued at two million dollars, and had a current income of $367,000. In the same year Judson College had an enrollment of 360 students.[3]
Because of changing demographics, on the fiftieth anniversary of the seminary in 1963, it was decided to leave the Chicago inner-city campus and move to a safer environment in Oak Brook, Illinois. At the same time, because of pressures from accrediting agencies and denominational agencies, it was also determined to spin off the undergraduate division to Elgin, Illinois, to become Judson College. In 1963, the seminary got a new campus and Judson College became an entity on its own, the seventh school to claim the name of the iconic missionary.
But a serious problem arose with the Baptist Board of Education in Valley Forge, PA, whose representative traveled to Elgin, “demanding by what right a new Baptist college was being established without the permission of the Board.”[4]
The controversy centered on one issue: whether this was “a forty year old college which was simply moving to a new campus, in order to expand its curriculum and operate under a new name,” or whether it was an entirely new college. The terms of the charter by the state of Illinois indeed contribute to the ambiguity.[5]
The 2013 commemorative book about Judson University was entitled Golden Centennial to acknowledge 100 years dating from 1913 and 50 years dating from 1963.[6] With the advent of graduate programs and the redefinition of local community colleges, in 2007 the school became Judson University to more accurately describe its position in the pantheon on higher education.
Flagship programs at Judson University include one of the few architecture programs at a Christian college in the U.S. enrolling over 200 majors and offering a Master in Architecture degree among the eight master’s programs offered by Judson. Three doctoral programs are available through the education department committed to serve educators in the Chicago-Rockford area. A campus facility at the Swedish-American Riverfront YMCA in Rockford, Illinois, serves the adult degree completion market as does the campus in Elgin.
Presently Judson University reports over 1000 students enrolled from 41 states and 29 countries with 7% of the student body being internationals. The student-faculty ratio is 11:1 with 76% of classes enrolling less than 20 students and taught by a faculty where 86% have their terminal degree. The university offers over 60 programs of study in undergraduate, graduate and adult professional formats. Students can study in 25 off-campus and study-abroad options plus participate in 22 intercollegiate athletic teams competing in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA).[7] The university has recently purchased a nursing school to expand its offerings in the health care arena.
Academic programs are fully accredited by:
Higher Learning Commission of North Central Association
National Architecture Accrediting Board
Illinois State Board of Education for teacher education
In the Best Colleges Survey of U.S. News and World Report, Judson University has been ranked as one of the Regional Best Universities in the Midwest every years since 2017.
The Ann Judson Missionary Scholarship fund was established at Judson University by missionary and historian Rosalie Hall Hunt. Proceeds from Dr. Hunt’s biography The Extraordinary Story of Ann Hasseltine Judson: A Life Beyond Boundaries (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2018) formed the nucleus of this endowment. Earnings from the corpus is used to assist students committed to a career in Christian ministry or for students on mission trips. Dr. Hunt’s grandmother was Ann Judson Fogle Wells who is reported in entry 1866-1955.
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[1] Warren Cameron Young, Commit What You Have Heard: A History of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1913-1988 (Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1988), pp. 1-6, 10-15.
[2] Ibid., p. 112.
[3] Lawrence T. Slaght, Multiplying the Witness: 150 Years of American Baptist Educational Ministries (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1974), pp. 115-116.
[4] Stuart A. Ryder, Adventures in Faith: Adoniram Judson, Benjamin P. Browne and Judson University (Elgin, Illinois: Copyright and published by Stuart A. Ryder, 2017), p. 138.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Robert Bittner, Judson University Golden Centennial: 1913-1963-2013 (Elgin, Illinois: Judson University, 2013), pp. 7-12.
[7] https://www.judsonu.edu