Point Loma Nazarene University history

The college was renamed Deets Pacific Bible College, in 1905.

In 1906, Bresee's interest in the college was piqued with a large donation from Mr. and Mrs.

Nazarene University opened in 1910 and from its beginning included male and female students.

Bresee died in 1915, but his message still resonates.

Bresee now saw the possibility for a real liberal arts college in the newly renamed Deets Pacific Bible College. It was renamed again to Pasadena University following a theological dispute and near bankruptcy in 1917.

By 1919, the name of the school had changed again to Pasadena College.

In 1923, the Marine Corps Recruit Depot was commissioned and the San Diego Naval Training Center set up shop in 1923.

In 1924, the name was changed again, this time to Pasadena College.

Unfortunately, a fire in 1952 destroyed some of the larger buildings in the complex, and only a few of the theosophy structures and the Greek Amphitheatre remain.

In 1964, W. Shelburne Brown became president of Pasadena College.

In 1973, the college was relocated to the former California Western University campus on Point Loma in San Diego, after a rejected plan to move the school to Santa Ana.

Harris, Iverson L. “REMINISCENCES OF LOMALAND: Madame Tingley and the Theosphical Institute in San Diego.” The Journal of San Diego History (1974).

KAMERLING, BRUCE. “THEOSOPHY AND SYMBOLIST ART: THE POINT LOMA ART SCHOOL.” The Journal of San Diego History (1980). <http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/80fall/theosophy.htm&gt;.

After the move to San Diego, the college existed for ten years as "Point Loma College: An Institution of the Church of the Nazarene" until the name was changed to Point Loma Nazarene College (PLNC) in 1983.

In November of 1997, Nicholson Commons was opened.

In 1998, the name was changed again, to Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU).

In 1999, PLNU began graduate programs in education in Bakersfield and Mission Valley.

A graduate program in education had remained in Pasadena since the move and in 2001, it moved to Arcadia.

But despite the lack of continuity between new and old, PLNU was ranked the 4th most beautiful campus in the United States by the Daily Beast in 2012, and it’s no surprise.