Trevecca Nazarene University - History

History

TNU was founded in 1901 by Cumberland Presbyterian minister J. O. McClurkan as the "Pentecostal Literary and Bible Training School". Part of the Pentecostal Alliance, it started offering bachelor's degrees in 1910, and the school's name was changed to Trevecca College for Christian Workers in 1911, after the Coleg Trefeca. The school was located in downtown Nashville until 1914, when it was moved to East Nashville on Gallatin Road. In 1917, the campus suffered a disastrous fire, and its students and faculty temporarily transferred to Ruskin Cave College. That same year, the school begrudgingly became an official college of the Church of the Nazarene, in order to save itself financially. Shortly after it had become a Nazarene institution, it absorbed the Southeastern Nazarene College of Georgia, but still found itself in bankruptcy and forced to sell its campus by 1932.

After occupying a temporary space on the former campus of the defunct Walden University on White's Creek, it was unable to buy the property and relocated to the Nashville First Church of the Nazarene, taking on the name Trevecca Nazarene College (TNC) in 1934. In 1935, the college moved back to its present location on Murfreesboro Road in southeast Nashville, where it once again leased and then took over the 7-acre campus of Walden University in 1937. President A. B. Mackey bought an adjoining 40-acre (160,000 m2) plot for himself and later transferred it to the college. It was first accredited in 1969 and began offering master's degrees in 1984. In 1995, the school's name was changed from Trevecca Nazarene College to Trevecca Nazarene University (TNU). In 1999, Trevecca offered its first doctoral degree (an EdD), and in 2011, added its first PhD degree (in clinical counseling).