Oral Roberts University (ORU) is a private Evangelical university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Founded in 1963, the university is named after its founder, Oral Roberts, a renowned American Charismatic Christian preacher and televangelist. Sitting on a 385-acre (156-hectare) campus, ORU offers over 70 undergraduate degree programs along with 20 graduate programs across six colleges. ORU is classified among "Master's Colleges & Universities: Medium Programs". The university enrolled over 6,000 students for the first time in 2025. In recent years, the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles have performed above expectation in both college baseball and basketball, including reaching the College World Series in 2023.
History
Foundation and early years Oral Roberts University was founded in 1963 by Oral Roberts, an influential Christian televangelist. In the 1950s, Roberts began to privately discuss the importance of not only educating ministers, evangelists and other religious figures, but how these values could form Christian-focused educational institutions in the United States. During the same decade, he had played a minor role in the establishment of a bible school. The early plans for ORU were to follow a similar strategy and to operate as a bible school for foreign students, with that idea first surfacing sometime between 1958 and 1960. While in a meeting with Pat Robertson, who at the time was forming the Christian Broadcasting Network, Roberts began recording the formal ideas for ORU on a napkin. By 1961, that idea had progressed and plans had begun to take place for its construction. In the summer of 1961, Roberts formally placed an offer on a plot of farm land in Tulsa, totaling 160 acres. An adjoining 20 acres of land were later included in the purchase.
Ground was officially broken for Oral Roberts University in 1962 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The university received its charter the following year from the State of Oklahoma and Oral Roberts University officially opened in 1965 with an enrollment of 300 students and seven major completed buildings. The university was founded by Oral Roberts "as a result of Oral Roberts' obeying God's mandate to build a university on God's authority and the Holy Spirit. God's commission to Oral Roberts was to 'Raise up your students to hear My voice, to go where My light is dim, where My voice is heard small, and My healing power is not known, even to the uttermost bounds of the earth. Their work will exceed yours, and in this I am well pleased'." Roberts placed special importance on the Prayer Tower, even though the concept of a building specifically dedicated to prayer at the center of the campus caused considerable tension, as some academic leaders were afraid the school would be unable to receive accreditation with such a building. But the tower, designed by architect Frank Wallace, was completed in 1967 at a cost of $2 million, a further source of contention. After its completion, Roberts called for a three-day period of prayer and fasting. At the university's dedication ceremony in 1967, the evangelist Billy Graham was the keynote speaker. The first partial graduation took place in 1968 and the first full graduation in 1969. ORU was accredited in 1971 by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. It is also accredited by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada. During the first decade of the school's existence many of the campus's iconic structures were completed, such as the Howard Auditorium, the Graduate Center, the Mabee Center, and Christ's Chapel. The O. W. Coburn School of Law opened in 1979. In 1986 the university "shut down its ailing law school and sent its library to Pat Robertson's Bible-based college in Virginia", which subsequently founded the Regent University School of Law.
Campus expansion and later years
The university built the City of Faith Medical and Research Center hospital in 1981 and started the Oral Roberts University School of Medicine in 1978. Severe financial difficulties with both of these institutions led to their closure in 1989. Oral Roberts's son Richard was named president in 1993. In January 1996, Golden Eagle Broadcasting, a digital satellite Christian and family programming television network owned and operated by Oral Roberts University, was founded. On February 5, 1997, Reverend Bill Shuler apologized after several ORU students attended a mosque on the 28th night of Ramadan and prayed outside. The university stated it didn't align with university policy with The New York Times stated that worshippers and the group of students had different accounts of the incident. In 2006, The Golden Eagles basketball team comfortably beat Kansas Jayhawks in an NCAA road game, 78-71. Kansas was the number 3 seed. In February 2007, ORU announced that it would offer new art degrees.
In 2010, ORU teamed up with the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference to open a bilingual Hispanic Center on campus. The goals of this partnership include targeting a 25% Hispanic population within the student body and to reduce the approximately 50% high school dropout rate among Hispanic students.
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