1977 | Oral Roberts University
I was raised in a Gold Rush state, whose aggressive get-rich-quick beginnings plowed over Native, then Mexican claims. In 1846, a tiny band of immigrants captured the Mexican comandante Vallejo and raised the Bear Flag to establish a rough republic, leading to statehood in 1850. Somehow, culture bloomed along with everything else, and the University of California was founded in 1868 with hope for an educated populace under the motto Fiat Lux.* (In 1870, a UC policy was adopted for women to be admitted equally.)
So when I visited Tulsa, I found the campus of Oral Roberts University, some 100 years younger than my alma mater, visually engaging but seriously unsettling. I had not encountered another place called a university which was founded on assertion rather than inquiry. Aside from its academic posture, its primary history is a long and sordid story of how its students were mistreated and its funds were diverted.
* ”Let there be Light”
** The University of California system operates as separate public corporation, insulating its academic mission from much of the political distractions in the state. But this is not without irony – my diploma was signed by Ronald Reagan, actor-cum-governor, which at the time I thought was an anomaly, but a generation later, my son’s well-earned degree was certified with the signature of…Arnold Schwartzenegger.