Campbell University has Been Providing Higher Learning for 122 Years
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When Mikaela Dalton first stepped onto the Campbell University campus, she was ready to make her college choice.
“I just knew this is where I needed to be,” says the college freshman.
Her certainty is well founded. Campbell is listed among the top 100 colleges in the Southeast by The Princeton Review, and US News & World Report ranks it in the top tier among Southern master’s level colleges. Case in point, Campbell’s law school graduates have often led in passage of the North Carolina Bar Exam, including a 100 percent passage rate in 1994, the first time in state history all members of a graduating class accomplished that feat.
Dalton, a Harnett County native who graduated third in her Harnett Central High School class, is attracted to Campbell’s business program, the school’s welcoming atmosphere and campus activities.
“I felt at home,” she says of her visit to Campbell. “I plan to sing and become involved in the campus ministry.”
“We try to create an active living and learning environment for our students,” says Dr. John Roberson, university vice president of marketing and planning. “There are currently 27 clubs on campus and 16 honor societies, and 60 percent of our students are involved in intramural competition in a variety of sports. In addition, we have a very active fine arts department, with ensembles that perform and plays that are presented throughout the year.”
With almost 3,000 main campus undergraduate students and an extended enrollment totaling almost 6,000, Campbell is small enough to be personal and large enough to offer a full university experience. Affiliated with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina through an autonomous relationship, Campbell is a well-endowed private university with a steady eye on capital improvements and academic excellence.
A $13 million pharmacy school project was recently completed, and the first phase of the Fellowship Commons has been finished, with the second phase soon to follow. The Pope Convocation Center, a $31 million major project, opened in September 2008, while the $8 million Butler Chapel is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009. Residential expansions have also been completed.
“We have several projects on the drawing board,” Roberson says. “One is a wet lab space for the biological sciences, and there are plans in the foreseeable future for a new science building.
It would not be unreasonable over the next five years for the university to invest another $75 million in physical improvements to the campus.”
Schools of business, divinity, arts and sciences, pharmacy, law and education make up the university’s academia. Accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Campbell is among the state’s largest church-related senior universities.
“Campbell University is proud to be a part of the Harnett County community,” Roberson says. “We are grateful for the residents of Harnett County who choose to start, to finish or continue their education here, and we are glad that we can provide eastern North Carolina with the resources of a comprehensive university within a nonurban environment.”
Story by Betsy Williams
Photo by Todd Bennett
