It’s an urban campus with a global feel: Columbia Union College, a Seventh-day Adventist school close to Washington, D.C., capital of the United States, stands in stark contrast to many Adventist university locations: others are mostly in suburban or rural areas, but CUC, based in Takoma Park, Maryland, is cosmopolitan to the core.

This small, yet growing, school just celebrated its 100-year anniversary. The celebration ceremony filled the pews of the on-campus Sligo church, which has 3,300 members, with guests from all levels of local government, former presidents, alumni and students.  The night ended with a spray of fireworks, the cost of which was covered by an alumnus. 

CUC was developed in part due to the prompting of Ellen G. White, one of the founders of the church and of the college.  The school existed alongside the Washington Adventist Sanitarium, now the Washington Adventist Hospital, to provide training and education for nurses and pastors. 

But Columbia Union College has changed over the years, at times radically but those who know it best say it still has not lost the core and vision of what it was founded to be: a gateway to service.

One of the major changes that CUC has gone through over the years is its changing demographic.  What was once a predominantly North American Caucasian campus with students coming primarily from traditional Adventist homes has become very diverse with students from 40 countries and all over the United States, according to Scott Steward, director of public relations for the school.

“What we have at CUC, many campuses long for,” says Dr. Randal Wisbey the president of CUC. 

“You can hear…five, six or seven languages in a couple of blocks” says Dr. Barry Casey, professor of communication and chair of the Public Relations and Journalism Department.  Casey has been at the school since 1981.

This diversity should be typical given that much of the Adventist church’s membership is African, Hispanic and Asian.  Sabine Vatel, the former chaplain at CUC agrees that the school does reflect a cross-section of the church’s membership saying, “What happens at CUC is a microcosm of what is happening in our church.”

Vatel was at the school for three years and just left last summer to go school in Florida.  She came to the school from Canadian University College.

CUC differs itself from many Adventist schools, where sometimes the boundaries between the school and the world are more clearly defined. The community runs straight through the CUC campus, says Casey, referring to Flower Avenue, which divides the administration building and men’s dorm from the library and women’s dorm.

However, for many years community members, who are not members of the Adventist church, barely knew of the school’s existence.  But the college that once “excelled in being invisible” has now reached out to the community it has been a part of for years, says Dr. Casey. 

To ensure that students have a comprehensive educational experience the school has in recent years set up two new centers, one dealing with issues of public policy and the other on metropolitan ministries, says Dan Day, marketing director for the school.  The Center for Metropolitan Ministry allows students to work in their communities outside the campus. As the school’s motto states, Columbia Union College is still the “gateway to service,” Day notes.  He adds that, “the focus has always been on service and is a requirement for many majors.” 

The Center for Law and Public Policy in particular allows exposure to the Washington D.C. world by organizing internships at the White House, in the United States Senate, the World Bank, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Attorney Roy Branson, the director of the Center for Law and Public Policy, says it is the only such center among 14 Adventist colleges in North America.  He is also a professor of ethics and public policy in the History and Political Studies Department at CUC.

Branson says the Center’s programs encourage students to enter law school. But its purpose is also to encourage fellowship and interaction with Adventist attorneys.  These encounters also “demonstrate how Adventist attorneys can express a moral perspective in public policy,” says Branson.

This view is one example of how the school’s theology has not strayed from its Adventist roots. If anything, changes such as the establishment of these two centers can be said to help reinforce its theology.

“CUC offers the kind of moral leadership the world is crying out for,” says Dr. Wisbey. “We are training a group of young people who will transform the world until Jesus Christ comes.”

Dr. Wisbey started out as a chaplain and professor at the school in the mid-1980s and after assignments at the Adventist church’s Andrews University in Michigan, United States and Canadian University College in Alberta, Canada has returned to promote change at the school.

An increasing number of students at CUC profess other faiths.

With the school’s consistent growth over the past five years, about 30 percent of students in the traditional program are not affiliated with the church, and in the Adult Evening Program that number is about 70 percent, says Steward.

“This gives [us] a built-in mission field to which we minister on a daily basis,” he adds.

The changing student body prompted Vatel, who left the school as chaplain last summer, to re-evaluate her approach to students as their chaplain.  She knew she could not minister to students as one might relate to a “typical” Adventist student body in the 1980s or even the 1990s. Instead, she experimented with different ways to build community among the students with various backgrounds.

“This is an increasingly secular student body,” Vatel says. “People are less informed about the Bible. Not everyone knows ... the message of our church.  Some [students] have never attended [Adventist schools] and come from single parent homes.  It’s a different reality of students that we are catering to.”

The influx of students who are not from traditional Adventist homes is seen as a positive thing for some affiliated with the school. 

“I think it’s a cool way to introduce what Adventists are all about,” says John Konrad, the general manager of WGTS, the Christian-music station based on the college’s campus.  Konrad has been a part of the college community for 17 years, starting as a freshman. He adds that non-church members get to learn what Adventists are all about because they have the same requirements as everyone else such as religion classes and community service.

Dorcas Adepoju, who is now studying at Loma Linda University’s medical school credits a religion class, “Jesus and the Gospels” she took at the college as helping her find her own relationship with Jesus. 

Adepoju grew up in an Adventist home but says the class introduced her to Jesus as a real person from a logical perspective, and student-led worship programs helped solidify her relationship with Christ. 

“That is our mission,” says Jean Warden, the school’s vice president for student life and retention. She adds that some students may attend the school for an education only, but she hopes that while they are there, they will find out about Jesus.

“We are not going to have an evangelistic crusade, but everything we do we keep in mind that we represent [Jesus],” says Warden.