The global diversity of Andrews University is reflected at every graduation on the Berrien Springs campus.
Andrea Luxton
May 4, 2022As Andrews educates more than 7,500 students each year in Berrien Springs and around the world, we seek to understand and reflect the educational needs found throughout our world. We’ve chosen the phrase “World Changers Made Here” as a way to describe our commitment.
Specifically, 4,500 students from nearly 100 countries study on or through our main Berrien Springs campus in more than 150 different programs and degrees.
In a variety of annual best college rankings, Andrews University consistently places in top ten rankings for its ethnic diversity and the number of international students.
Additionally, 500 students are part of our Andrews family each year through a variety of global study options at more than 50 different international partner campuses or through individual distance education. Our global partnerships include undergraduate exchange and transfer programs in locations ranging from South Korea to Kenya and graduate-level courses and degree options in places ranging from Brazil to Vietnam.
There also are 2,500 primary and secondary students who study through Andrews University’s Griggs International Academy (GIA), including at GIA-operated elementary and secondary schools worldwide. Additionally, Andrews University owns and operates Ruth Murdoch Elementary School and Andrews Academy in Berrien Springs.
On our main University campus, the opportunities to understand and change the world weave through everything we do, both inside the classroom and beyond.
Our newly established Office of University Culture & Inclusion began in 2017 and now includes a Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Campus Center. It seeks to help the University learn from some of the challenging lessons, disappointments and opportunities of the past and to develop and implement meaningful and inclusive strategies for the future of our globally diverse community.
Our School of Social Work launched an International Center for Trauma Education & Care in 2019. Students and teachers have traveled to places burdened with significant human need, including Navajo reservations in the U.S. and orphanages and permanent refugee camps in Cambodia and Ethiopia.
Our University Wellness team believes that every human being was “Made to Thrive.” They seek to inspire wellness and optimize “every aspect of our lives to harmoniously reflect the image of our Creator.” The new Andreasen Center for Wellness, opened in 2019, encourages and inspires our community to focus on healthy living through the spiritual, mental and physical renewal that comes from God’s world.
A new Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship, launched during summer 2021, is designed to offer an environment to create opportunities and resources for students who want to explore, invent and implement world-changing ideas.
Additional opportunities to inspire World Changers involve outreach to our local communities, including an annual Change Day when hundreds of students and employees complete local service projects.
Our University chaplain, and the programs he directs through the Center for Faith Engagement, seeks to deepen the faith, activity and purpose of our Andrews family. That includes gathering our community to worship and serve together in dozens of short- and long-term options on- and off-campus.
In the end, Andrews University’s goal has always been to inspire and create graduates who are World Changers.
That’s true throughout our nearly 150-year history, as we’ve educated and trained pastors, teachers and healthcare workers who now serve as division and global church and education leaders for the Adventist Church. Our graduates are leaders at Toyota/Lexus, ANA Airways/Vietnam and AdventHealth, and also pursue graduate studies at places like Johns Hopkins, Harvard and UC Berkeley.
Along with the rest of the world, we faced an unprecedented set of challenges beginning in March 2020. COVID-19 continues to force and inspire us to navigate new ways to study, live and work together.
Throughout these difficult times, our campus has been consistently inspired by how our community pulled together to face the challenge and to keep everyone as safe as possible. Those efforts included significant support from our School of Distance Education who helped equip us for remote learning needs, and a campuswide COVID-19 Administration Group has continued to meet regularly to discuss and develop effective strategies for our response to the global pandemic.
How we operate continues to change, but our goal to change the world remains—now in a reimagined way. In this current context, we continue to adapt so we might always be a place where our employees and students belong, a place where World Changers are made.
At Andrews University, we seek to fulfill our history, purpose and future as a place where World Changers continue to be inspired to contribute to God’s Kingdom.
Andrea Luxton has served as the president of Andrews University since 2016.
