Southern Nazarene University - History

History

The history of the institution is one of various mergers and, therefore, one of differing institutions. While SNU claims its founding date as 1899, that founding date refers to an institution that merged with what is now SNU: Texas Holiness University. As an Oklahoman institution, SNU dates back to 1906, with the founding of the Beulah Heights Academy and Bible School.

The roots of the original Southern Nazarene University are primarily in an orphanage of downtown Oklahoma City, founded by Miss Mattie Mallory. Mallory used her inheritance to buy property north of the city, which she named Beulah Heights, and relocated the orphanage there. Then, in 1906, the Beulah Heights Academy and Bible School opened. In 1909, the school was renamed Oklahoma Holiness University and new property was purchased to the west of Oklahoma City at Bethany. That same year the surrounding holiness community became Nazarene and, as its church base swelled, the school’s financial problems "proved less threatening than those at other institutions." The school eventually changed its name in 1918 to Oklahoma Nazarene College, when the first Nazarene Educational Regions were established.

When Peniel College merged with Oklahoma Nazarene College in 1920, the name changed to Bethany-Peniel College. Peniel was the first of four fellow Nazarene institutions that would be absorbed by the Oklahoma school. The second institution was Central Nazarene College, another Nazarene school in Texas, in 1929. Two years later, Arkansas Holiness College was absorbed by Bethany-Peniel. The last merger was Bresee Theological College, in 1940. As historian Timothy L. Smith wrote, "It eventually outdistanced and absorbed the schools at Hutchinson, Kansas, Peniel and Hamlin, Texas, Vilonia, Arkansas, and Des Arc, Missouri. Bethany became the Nazarene center for the whole Southwest.”

In 1955, the name changed again from Bethany-Peniel College to Bethany Nazarene College (BNC) to avoid confusion with the term "penal" or "penal colony", and again in 1986, from Bethany Nazarene College to Southern Nazarene University (SNU).