Faithfully Attaining a Lofty Stature
Original: FaithfullyAttaining a Lofty Stature
Reprinted from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
May 28, 2006
Section 1.B
By Jennifer Peltz
When Palm Beach Atlantic University talks about growth, it'soften the spiritual kind.
But the nondenominational Christian university also is expandingin many other dimensions these days.
The student body is growing steadily. A new library is underconstruction, the latest of several major additions to Palm BeachAtlantic's serene waterfront campus.
Sports teams are moving into a more competitive division, andthe university is planning to create playing fields for teams thatnow practice and compete on borrowed turf. The university has takenon new dorms, degrees and even a new name in the last fiveyears.
Palm Beach Atlantic is part of a wave of growth in its type ofinstitution, sometimes described as "Christ-centered" or"intentionally Christian." They're liberal-arts colleges withstrong emphases on faith, rather than just historical ties tochurches. But they offer broader curricula than seminaries or Biblecolleges.
PBAU's growth takes shape in such students as Jessica Van Culin,part of Palm Beach Atlantic's first class of nurses. They're ontrack to graduate next spring.
Van Culin, who already has a bachelor's degree in exercisescience from a North Carolina university, was impressed with thenew nursing school's labs and faculty. But she also was drawn byits grounding in faith.
"My intention in going into [nursing] was that I could shareChrist's love with others by reaching out with my hands. [I saw]this was a school that would really teach from that foundation,"says Van Culin. Her husband, the Rev. Andrew Van Culin, is anassociate pastor at Bethesda-by-the-Sea, a venerable Episcopalchurch on Palm Beach.
At Palm Beach Atlantic, undergraduate majors range from musicaltheater to organizational management, but questions of faith andethics are explored in every field, the university says. Studentsdon't have to declare their beliefs, but they must attend chapel,volunteer in a church or community-service agency and pledge not todrink, smoke or have sex outside marriage.
As a group, PBAU and 101 similar institutions nationwide logged70 percent enrollment growth between 1990 and 2004 -- more thantwice the growth rate of religious and private colleges in general,according to the Council for Christian Colleges &Universities.
Explanations range from academic improvements to new adultprograms. But the colleges also believe their frankness about faithis an increasingly powerful magnet.
Recent years have sharpened focus on religion on Americancampuses, including secular ones. A 2003 survey of 112,000 collegefreshmen found that more than 80 percent had attended religiousservices within the past year, and 40 percent considered it veryimportant to hew to religious teachings in daily life. But theUniversity of California-Los Angeles survey also noted that almost1 in 2 students comes to college "doubting," "conflicted [about]"or "seeking" their faith.
Against that backdrop, Palm Beach Atlantic sees itself as ahaven for "people who want to be people of faith and character, butthey're not fanatical," says President David W. Clark. "We havepeople with a critical attitude; they're not gullible. That mightsound inconsistent with a religious institution, but I don't thinkso. A vital faith has to be a faith that's examined and thoughtabout."
And it is at Palm Beach Atlantic, says new graduate Amelia"Mimi" Appel. This month, she earned the PBAU School of Ministry'sfirst degree in cross-cultural and urban studies, with acommunications minor.
In her classes, she says, "Students asked hard questions [aboutbeliefs] ... and they didn't give us easy answers."
At 38, Palm Beach Atlantic is relatively young in academiccircles, and it's still in something of a growth spurt. It launchedits first doctoral program in 2001 and upgraded itself from"college" to "university" a year later.
Enrollment has risen almost 40 percent, to 3,300, in the lastfive years. Meanwhile, an average of $7 million in yearly donationshas helped spawn a spate of new buildings on the university'scompact campus near downtown West Palm Beach. The latest is the $22million library, expected to open late this fall.
It's designed to accommodate about twice as many books, fourtimes as many students and three times as many computers as thecurrent library, squeezed above a theater in a 1930s building. Thenew library -- named for longtime trustee Dr. Donald E. Warren andhis wife, Bebe -- also will boast a caf, wireless Internet accessand copious outlets for laptops.
"We really want it to be a destination for students," saysbuilding chief Bob Priolo.
The university also is lining up new space for sports by buyingabout 76 acres of Palm Beach County-owned land in another part ofWest Palm Beach. The $3.1 million deal is expected to close withinweeks, according to both sides.
For more information about Palm Beach Atlantic University, go towww.pba.edu or call 888-468-6722.
