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  • 21 Aug, 2019

  • By, Wikipedia

Trinity International University
Trinity International University (TIU) is an evangelical Christian university headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois. It comprises Trinity College, Trinity Graduate School, a theological seminary (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), a law school (Trinity Law School which is located in Santa Ana, California), and a camp called Timber-lee. The university also maintains campuses in North Lauderdale, Florida & Miami, Florida; the camp is located in East Troy, Wisconsin. TIU is the only university affiliated with Evangelical Free Church of America in the United States and enrolls about 2,700 students. On February 17, 2023, TIU announced it was moving the undergraduate program to online modalities only and closed the residential campus at the end of the Spring 2023 semester.

History

Tracing its roots to 1897, TIU formed in the late 1940s as the result of a merger of two schools:

  • A school run by the Swedish Evangelical Free Church, founded in 1897 in Chicago, and incorporated as the Swedish Bible Institute of Chicago, then affiliated with Moody Bible Institute as the Swedish Department until 1925 when it became the Swedish Evangelical Free Church Bible Institute and Seminary.
  • A three-year Bible school, the Norwegian-Danish Bible Institute and Academy, founded in 1910 by the Norwegian-Danish Free Church, established in Rushford, Minnesota and later moving to Minneapolis and becoming Trinity Seminary and Bible Institute.

By 1949, the Minneapolis-based school moved to Chicago and the unified schools became known as Trinity Seminary and Bible College. In 1961 the school moved to a new campus in Bannockburn, Illinois, (Deerfield, Illinois postal address) and a year later was renamed Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) and Trinity College. The school grew from an enrollment of 51 in 1961 to 1,400 in 1990. In 1995, TEDS became part of Trinity International University, along with Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois, and Trinity College in Miami, (formerly Miami Christian College which was obtained through a merger of the two institutions). In 1997 Trinity Law School, located in Santa Ana, California, was incorporated into Trinity International University and the Trinity Graduate School was founded.

In 2014, David S. Dockery was elected unanimously as the 15th president of Trinity. He was inaugurated in October of that year. Nicholas Perrin was elected as the 16th president in June 2019.

Approvals, accreditations and memberships

Trinity International University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. The divinity school is also programmatically accredited by the Commission on Accrediting of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS).

TIU's law school, located in Santa Ana, California, is accredited by the Committee of Bar Examiners (CBE) of the State Bar of California (CALBAR). The normative nationwide USDE- and CHEA-approved accreditor of law schools is the American Bar Association (ABA). Within the state of California, though, law schools are also accredited by CALBAR CBE, which is neither USDE- or CHEA-approved. Graduates of non-ABA accredited program are not recognized outside of the state of California. TIU's Trinity Law School (Santa Ana campus only) is also included as part of TIU's regional accreditation by the USDE- and CHEA-approved NCA-HLC.

Trinity International University is exempt from the need to be approved to operate in Illinois by the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE), which lists it as a "private NFP (not-for-profit) institution". Its educational programs for K-12 teachers are approved by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) so that TIU's graduates from said programs may obtain state-issued teaching credentials. TIU is, further, approved by the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) (formerly the Illinois State Scholarship Commission (ISSC)) Monetary Award Program (MAP) so that TIU's students may receive Illinois educational grants and scholarships.

Prior to 2003, TIU's athletic trainer program was accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP); however in 2003 the accreditation of such programs was taken over by the Joint Review Committee on Athletic Training (JRC-AT); and in 2006 JRC-AT became the Committee for Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE). TIU's undergraduate athletic training educational program claims CAATE accreditation on its website.

TIU is also a member of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), the Christian College Consortium (CCC), and the Christian Adult Higher Education Association (CAHEA).

Athletics

The Trinity International athletic teams were called the Trojans. Prior to the move to an all-online undergraduate academic format in 2023, the university university was a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing in the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference (CCAC) for most of its sports from 1996–97 until its move after 2022–23; while its football program competed in the Mideast League of the Mid-States Football Association (MSFA). They were also a member of the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA), primarily competing as an independent in the North Central Region of the Division I level.

Trinity International competed in nine intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, football, soccer and volleyball; while women's sports include basketball, soccer, softball and volleyball.

Accomplishments

In 2022, women’s volleyball claimed the NCCAA D1 National Championship, making the title a program first and last.

Notable Faculty

Notable alumni