Union University history

Jackson Male Academy was the first of these predecessors and was founded in 1825, but was transformed after just two decades into West Tennessee College.

Meanwhile, after years of discussion and the raising of an endowment, the Baptists of Middle Tennessee (there were three separate conventions in Tennessee at that time) in 1848 established Union University in Murfreesboro, near the geographical center of the state.

Union University came upon hard times when in 1859 its highly respected president, Joseph H. Eaton, died and when during the Civil War its campus was badly damaged.

The American Baptist Home Mission Society (ABHMS) founded the school in 1865 shortly after Union troops took control of Richmond, Virginia, at the end of the American Civil War.

Beginning in 1867, Colver Institute, a VUU predecessor school, was housed in a building long known as Lumpkin's Jail, a former "slave jail" owned by Mary Ann Lumpkin, the African-American widow of the deceased white owner.

Union University Murfreesboro, which suffered greater war time losses, eventually closed for good following a typhoid epidemic in 1873.

West Tennessee College continued until 1874, when at a time of depressed economic conditions, the trustees offered the College's buildings, grounds, and endowment to Tennessee Baptists in the hopes of attracting the southwestern regional university planned by the state's Baptist leaders.

In 1899, the Richmond Theological Institute (formerly Colver Institute) joined with Wayland Seminary of Washington to form Virginia Union University at Richmond.

Hence, Southwestern was the “union” of West Tennessee College and Union University Murfreesboro, and the name was officially changed to Union University in 1907.

In 1925 the Tennessee Baptist Convention secured a charter that vested the rights, authority, and property of Union University in the Tennessee Convention.

In 1962 Union developed a nursing program with the assistance of Jackson-Madison County General Hospital at the request of local physicians.

David S. Dockery was elected as the fifteenth president of Union University in December 1995.

On the evening of November 10, 2002, during the Veterans Day Weekend tornado outbreak, the university was struck by an F1 tornado, with winds of approximately 100 miles per hour, which did approximately 2 million dollars worth of damage to the university.

On February 5, 2008, at 7:02 p.m., the university was struck by an EF4 tornado, with winds between 166–200 miles per hour.

The Logos — Union's three-story, 54,000-square foot library was dedicated on November 6, 2015.