See the full January 2019 Education Reporter issue here.
Oklahoma Wesleyan University is the result of mergers of colleges and church denominations dating back to 1910. Today the school aims to “provide higher education within a Christian environment for Wesleyan youth.” It is “an evangelical Christian university of The Wesleyan Church.” The Wesleyan Church was founded in 1968 when the Wesleyan Methodist Church and the Pilgrim Holiness Church merged.
This Bartlesville, Oklahoma school is a four-year university of liberal arts and sciences. The current location, about 40 miles north of Tulsa, was purchased in 1959.
Oklahoma Wesleyan University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the Commission on Collegiate
Nursing Education, and the International Assembly of Collegiate Business Education.
The school has four “Pillars.” These are:
1. The Primacy of Jesus Christ as the incarnate Son of God, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, who is the lens for all learning and the Lord of our daily lives.
2. The Priority of Scripture as the inerrant and authoritative written Word of God that guides us in all matters of faith, learning, and living.
3. The Pursuit of Truth as an objective, attainable reality grounded in the person and example of Jesus Christ and anchored in the Bible.
4. The Practice of Wisdom as the goal for all members of the university community, who work to promote healing and wholeness in a broken culture and hurting world.
Student Life & Community Standards
Oklahoma Wesleyan University (OKWU) is a residential campus where all unmarried students and full-time students are required to live on campus. Male and female students are housed in separate dorms. There is a curfew after which time students are expected to be in their own dorm rooms and campus security locks the exterior doors. Students living with their parents or who are seniors or older than 22 may apply to live off campus.
OKWU is a drug- and alcohol-free community. Students can’t possess, be under the influence of, or distribute illegal drugs or alcohol on or off campus without risking university sanctions and/ or police involvement.
“OKWU affirms that sexual relationships are designed by God to be expressed solely within a marriage between a husband and wife.”
Giving Back
In December, the OKWU website reflected on ways the university has given back to the local and international community during the school year. More than a dozen members of the men’s basketball team and four coaches spent a week in the Dominican Republic in partnership with GO Ministries. The young men held sports camps in three communities. They brought along basketballs as gifts and spent time painting houses for local residents.
The women’s basketball team volunteered close to home at a local Christian outreach and church. They served as a welcoming committee for new students moving into campus dorms and helped around the school with maintenance and gardening duties.
The Volleyball team served at a local mission where they and their coaches served lunch for almost 200 members of the local community.
Student leaders partnered with a local organization to provide free babysitting so that foster parents could enjoy a night out. This was in conjunction with alumnus Eric Mills who leads Faces With Names, a non-profit that aims to “serve as a catalyst ministry to engage and equip churches to create the culture of orphan care through foster care, adoption, and global orphan care.”
Find out more at OKWU.edu.
