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Texas Christian University

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Texas Christian University
Official Seal of Texas Christian University
MottoDisciplina est Facultas
Knowledge is Power
TypePrivate
Established1873
Endowment~$1.2 billion (USD) (TCU & Brite Divinity School)
ChancellorDr. Victor J. Boschini, Jr.
Academic staff
550 (full-time)
Students8,749
Undergraduates7,171
Postgraduates1,578
Location
Fort Worth
,
Texas
,
USA
CampusUrban, 325 acres
AffiliationsChristian Church (Disciples of Christ)
MascotHorned Frog
Websitehttp://www.tcu.edu

Texas Christian University (TCU) is a private, coeducational university located in Fort Worth, Texas. TCU is affiliated with, but not governed by, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Its mascot is the "horned frog". Its school colors are purple and white.

Mission, Vision, and Values

Mission

To educate individuals to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens in the global community.

Vision

To be a prominent private university recognized for our global perspective, our diverse and supportive learning community, our commitment to research and creative discovery, and our emphasis on leadership development.

Core values

TCU values academic achievement, personal freedom and integrity, the dignity and respect of the individual, and a heritage of inclusiveness, tolerance, and service.

History

East Texas brothers Addison and Randolph Clark, together with their father Joseph A. Clark, founded what was then called the AddRan Male & Female College in 1873 after the brothers had returned from service in the War Between the States. AddRan, a contraction of the brothers' names, had been the name of Addison Clark's first child, a boy who died of diphtheria in 1872 at the age of three and is buried in Pioneers Rest Cemetery in Fort Worth. The name is now preserved in TCU's college of humanities and social sciences.

The Clarks were scholar-preacher/teachers who were products of the Campbellite movement, one of the streams of the Restorationist movement in the nineteenth-century American church. The Campbellites were the spiritual ancestors of the modern Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, and the non-instrumental Churches of Christ. Campbellites were also major proponents of education, and the Clarks operated a preparatory school, the Male & Female Seminary of Fort Worth, from 1869 to 1874. But they also envisioned an institution of higher learning for both men and women that would be Christian in character, but nonsectarian in spirit.

They planned to establish their college in Fort Worth on five city blocks purchased for that purpose in 1869. However, from 1867-1872, the character of Fort Worth changed substantially due to the commercial influence of the Chisholm Trail, the principal route for moving Texas cattle to the Kansas railheads. A huge influx of cattle, men, and money transformed the sleepy frontier village into a booming, brawling cowtown. Randolph Clark described Fort Worth in those days as follows:

"The longhorns roamed over the hills and valleys by the thousands. ...Ft. Worth was a supply station; here the 'grub-wagon' was replenished for the long drive to the Red River and through the Indian Territory to Kansas. Here the buyers from the North met the cattlemen from the range. Prospecters and adventurers, the genuine cowboys in charge of the herds and the noisy imitation, the tough vagabond and the professional gambler... seemed ever present. Money circulated freely. There was no law against carrying deadly weapons. Business was transacted in the open, and each man carried his burglar insurance. ...The quiet prairie town was deluged with a flood of humanity. Boys, young men, and family men were caught up in this whirlpool of licentiousness and greed. It came to be a saying that one trip over the trail with a herd to Kansas would ruin the ordinary boy, and that the boy who was strong enough to stand two trips was forever safe, but he would show the scars." (Randolph Clark, Reminiscences Biographical and Historical, 1919.)

The area around the property purchased by the Clarks for their college soon became the town's vice district, an unrelieved stretch of saloons, dance halls, gambling parlors, and bordellos catering to the bawdy appetites of cowboys and gamblers. It soon acquired a nickname that stuck: "Hell's Half Acre."

The Clarks feared their students would be "dazzled by this glitter of vice and caught like insects around a street lamp." They began to look for an alternative site to establish their college, and they found it at Thorp Spring, a frontier stagecoach stop 40 miles to the southwest, near the fringe of Comanche and Kiowa territory. It was perhaps a marker of their Campbellite sensibilities that the Clarks feared the Indians less than they feared the corrupting influence of "the Acre."

AddRan College (TCU) was one of the first coeducational institutions of higher education west of the Mississippi River, a progressive step at a time when only 15% of the national college enrollement was female and almost exclusive enrolled at women's colleges. AddRan's inaugural enrollment was 13 students, though this number rose to 123 by the end of the first term. Shortly thereafter, annual enrollment ranged from 200 to 400. The college formed a partnership with what would become the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in 1889 and was renamed AddRan Christian University. The church does not own or operate TCU; the partnership is based on a common heritage and shared values.

The need for a larger population and transportation base prompted the university to relocate to Waco from 1895 to 1910. A featured speaker at the Waco welcoming ceremony was the president of crosstown rival, Baylor University. The institution was renamed Texas Christian University in 1902, though almost immediately it was dubbed with the unofficial moniker by which it is popularly known today: TCU.

In 1910, a fire of unknown origin destroyed the university's main administration building. A group of enterprising Fort Worth businessmen offered the university $200,000 in rebuilding money and a 50-acre campus as an inducement to relocate to their city. This move brought TCU back to the historic source of its institutional roots. It also completed TCU's nearly 40-year transition from a frontier college to an urban university.

Colleges and Schools

  • AddRan College of Humanities & Social Sciences
  • Brite Divinity School
  • M.J. Neeley School of Business
  • College of Communication
  • School of Education
  • College of Fine Arts
  • Harris College of Nursing and Health Sciences
  • Schieffer School of Journalism
  • College of Science & Engineering

Administration

  • Chancellor: Dr. Victor J. Boschini, Jr.
  • Provost & Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs: Dr. Nowell Donovan
  • Dean of Admission: Raymond A. Brown
  • Vice Chancellor for Finance & Administration: Brian G. Gutierrez
  • Vice Chancellor for Marketing & Communication: Larry D. Lauer
  • Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs: Donald B. Mills
  • Vice Chancellor for University Advancement: Donald J. Whelan, Jr.

Endowment

As of 2005, TCU's combined endowment stood at $1.19 USD billion (48th largest in the United States).

Athletics

Horned Frogs logo
Horned Frogs logo

TCU competes in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sports as a member of the Mountain West Conference in Division I (I-A in football). TCU was a long-time member of the former Southwest Conference (which also included Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Baylor, Southern Methodist University, Houston, Arkansas, and Rice) until that conference was disbanded after the 1995 season with the formation of the Big 12 Conference. TCU then moved to the Western Athletic Conference, shifted to Conference USA in 2001, and moved again in 2005 to the Mountain West Conference. It fields NCAA teams in the following varsity sports:


Football

TCU won the national championship in football in both 1935 and 1938. The school's most famous players of the past were Rags Matthews, Sammy Baugh, Davey O'Brien (a Heisman Trophy winner, and namesake of the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award), Johnny Vaught (later one of the most celebrated coaches of the University of Mississippi), Ki Aldrich, Darrell Lester, Jim Swink, and Bob Lilly. TCU's most successful head coaches were Matty Bell, L.R. "Dutch" Meyer, Abe Martin, Dennis Franchione, and current coach Gary Patterson.

Matthews, Baugh, O'Brien, Aldrich, Lester, Swink, Lilly, and Dutch Meyer are all members of the College Football Hall of Fame. Baugh and Lilly are also members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Among currently active players, the best-known TCU product is National Football League (NFL) star LaDainian Tomlinson (NCAA record holder for rushing yards in a single game and recipient of the Doak Walker Award), the starting running back for the San Diego Chargers. In 2004, "LT" signed a six-year, $60-million contract making him the highest paid running back in NFL history. In 2005, he tied an NFL record for most consecutive games with a touchdown at 18 straight games.

In the 2005 season the Horned Frog football team won the Mountain West football championship in the school's first year in the conference, going 8-0 in conference play, despite being picked by the league's coaches to finish sixth. It is the first non-shared conference championship for the Horned Frogs since they won the Southwest Conference Championship in 1958. At the end of the 2005 season TCU held the second-longest winning streak in the nation at 10, behind only the Bowl Championship Series champion, Texas Longhorns. For the 2005 season the Horned Frogs final record was 11-1 and was ranked at #9 nationally by the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll and #11 by the Associated Press Poll. The single loss was to local rival SMU.

Athletic Facilities

Notable alumni

University statistics

  • Annual Cost (Estimate): $31,550 (includes housing, books and fees)
  • Student Organizations: Over 200
  • Residence Halls: 20 (with four more in construction and several in planning)

See also

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