Eastern University is a Christian university dedicated to preparing undergraduate, theological, and graduate students for thoughtful and productive lives of Christian faith, leadership, and service. The mission is confirmed and celebrated when graduates believe their way into knowledgeable action that influences the world in substantive ways.
Eastern University is dedicated to ideas, inquiry, and the development of people of faith who will enhance society and the church's quality. Toward that end, Eastern will continue to expand its formative role in the world as a university in which knowledge and wisdom are imbued, Christlike engagement is inspired, and stewardship is modeled.
Pursuing a graduate degree is an exciting endeavor. At Eastern, we are committed to making our programs convenient, flexible, and affordable, so that you can enjoy doing what you came to do—grow. Advance your career, expand your mind, and deepen your convictions through our high-quality, innovative programs.
Eastern is a Nationally-Recognized Christian University offering Top Adult Undergraduate Degrees, over 20 master's degrees, 28 graduate certifications, and four doctoral programs. Our online and evening classes at over 6 Philadelphia and Harrisburg locations are designed to fit into your schedule and help you reach your goals. In every Eastern program, students learn how faith, reason, and justice intersect and how to use their degree to make significant contributions in their communities, families, and workplaces.
Our professors are not only passionate about their field of study but about the students they serve. Individualized support and mentorship naturally occur in the Eastern community. As an Eastern student, you are assigned a Student Success Advisor who is available to answer questions, assist with course selection, and ensure you remain on the right path to reaching your educational goals.
Leverage services like resume and cover letter reviews, job search software via Handshake, career events, and networking opportunities through our Office for Talent and Career Development. We are enriched by persons of different ethnicities, ages, academic programs, nationalities, gender, economic backgrounds, political views, and ways of understanding one's place in the world.
The Eastern University Intensive English as a Second Language program (EU-IESL) is a year-round, 3-level academic ESL program. The program is designed for international students who need to improve their English language skills before beginning academic coursework at Eastern University, and for individuals who are not seeking a degree at Eastern University but want to improve their English skills. The program offers content-based courses in academic reading, writing, grammar, listening, speaking, and integrated skills. The courses are offered year-round in three 14-week terms: fall, spring, and summer. Both undergraduate and graduate students can register for any or all of the three sessions. ESL study concurrent with an academic program is available for students who exhibit levels of expertise that indicate they can begin their academic coursework but who would benefit from additional ESL support.
The program honors linguistic, religious, and cultural differences. This program will ensure that all enrolled students have successful ESL learning opportunities that help them reach their full potential and add quality throughout their academic and professional lives. The Eastern University IESL Program is dedicated to assisting international students with readiness to enter English-based university-level degree programs at Eastern and elsewhere. The program also acts to enhance diversity understanding among English language learners. It seeks to empower them to develop a deeper understanding of their own cultures and the diverse cultures in the United States and the world as they meet, study, live among and get to know other students.
Over 90 years ago, on March 19, 1924, at 1:30 p.m. in the American Baptist Publication Society's headquarters on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, six Baptist ministers founded what was then called the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
According to Gordon Baker, Pastor of First Baptist Church of Schenectady, NY at the time, and one of the six founders at that meeting ninety years ago that afternoon, the seminary was founded to provide Baptist churches with pastors were both biblically informed and also culturally relevant.
Soon after that, college courses were added to the seminary curriculum to upgrade prospective ministerial students' academic qualifications. Eastern University was founded in 1932 as a collegiate division of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. In 1951, Eastern Baptist College was organized as an independent institution and relocated to the former Charles S. Walton estate in St. Davids, PA. Early in 1972, the school's legal name was changed to Eastern College: a Baptist Institution.
A few years later, a correspondence school was added. It was an attempt to meet the educational needs of those who could neither travel to Philadelphia nor whose current life situation made theological education feasible to access. Eastern's commitment to shaping education and curriculum to the adult learner continues through its graduate and adult undergraduate programs today. The first Eastern College graduate program (MBA) was approved in 1981.
Because of its growing complexity and expansion into international venues, Eastern College was granted University status in December 2001. In 2003, the University was reunited with its mother institution, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Honoring the legacy of its longest-serving president, Gordon Palmer, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, was renamed Palmer Theological Seminary on July 1, 2005.
Today, the University enrolls approximately 3,500 students in undergraduate, graduate, urban, professional, international, and seminary programs both on-ground and online. Its core values of faith, reason, and justice are woven into all of its educational programs.
VIDEOS
