Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Linfield College becomes Linfield University on July 1, 2020


(Headline of this story in the newspaper: ‘U’ turn ahead: Linfield set to graduate ‘college’)

By Starla Pointer, McMinnville N-R/News-Register, June 30, 2020

After almost a century as Linfield College, McMinnville’s private school will be renamed Linfield University on July 1.

“With the new name, we’re not just staying the course, nor simply changing the sign on Founders Way,” said Miles Davis, Linfield’s 41st president. “We’re transforming into an institution that will serve students in the comping decades with a new structure.”

Linfield has about 2,000 students enrolled on its McMinnville and Portland campuses, along with online and adult degree completing programs. 

The American Baptist denomination started what became Linfield in 1858. The Baptist College served secondary students as well as those pursing higher education in its early years. It became McMinnville College as it moved from downtown to its current site, where Pioneer Hall was built in 1882.

In 1922 the school received a major donation from the Linfield family and assumed its benefactor’s name. It grew in both enrollment and programs over the decades.

In the mid-1990s it expanded in size, as well, as the campus incorporated the former Hewlett-Packard site next door. The library, art department, theater and music departments, along with additional living quarters, fill the south part of the campus, with more academic buildings, dorms, the cafeteria and science and sports complexes on the original section, anchored by the belltower topped Pioneer Hall. 

Linfield paired with a nursing program in Portland in 1982 to create the Linfield-Good Samaritan School of Nursing. It will move to new quarters next year: the former University of Western States campus, a 20-acre site with buildings equipped for medical studies, which it purchased in 2018.

Nursing and business become schools in the new university format, along with a College of Arts and Sciences. Linfield plays to add master’s degrees to its undergraduate programs: it already has developed master’s tracks in the health care leadership and wine studies.

“We will continue to be a mission-driven institution that connects learning, life and community,” Davis said. “We will continue to focus on the student experience and maintain our emphasis on a high-quality interdisciplinary education.”

The goal is to ensure the Linfield name – and the values it represents – remains strong for at least another 162 years.