Southern Adventist University (SAU)

The “top-notch, passionate, [and] available” profesors at Southern “truly care about [student] success” and “take time to talk with the students---not just the good ones, but also the struggling and average ones.” “Once when I was too sick to go to class,” relates one undergrad, “one of my teachers brought the class handouts right to my dorm so I could complete the homework for the next day.” Southern’s academic strengths include “nursing, business, religion, and teaching,” but undergrads say the Seventh-Day Adventist school “creates mission-minded graduates no matter what field of study” they choose. Southern’s popular nursing program is particularly “excellent,” “enlightening,” and challenging. The “professors are fantastic,” says one nursing major. “They are all meant to be here and . . . I love them all.” “The administration is a bit old-fashioned” and “could definitely work on allowing more student input [o]n certain decisions,” but administrators are also genuinely “concerned about [students’] well-being” and “very sociable”; they, “including the president, are sometimes even seen at the dining hall serving students.” Students gripe that it’s “hard to get financial help” at Southern, and that the cost of tuition “adds a whole lot of stress.” “Where does all my money go?” wonders one undergrad. One student sums it up: Southern “is about helping you decide what you want to do with your life career-wise, inspiring you to have a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, and sucking your wallet completely dry!”

“Everyone is different, but we all love Jesus,” says one student, whose classmates agree: Southern is “a culturally and geographically diverse school” in which “The big majority of kids may come from different backgrounds, but our unique religious background gives us a similar history and, thus, makes us uniform.” Students note approvingly that their classmates are “nice, happy, [and] friendly.” “The typical student . . . smiles and says ‘hi’ when one walks by. Most people hold the door open for others.” Many students say that “the students [who] are atypical don’t seem to have trouble fitting in because people seem generally accepting of other people.”

The Southern campus lies near the Tennessee River and the Georgia state line in a “gorgeous” region with manifold opportunities for “kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking, cycling, hiking, boating, caving,” “sky diving, canoeing, and camping.” Nearby, “neat, artsy” Chattanooga also “makes for a fun and easy getaway.” The student body eschews drinking and partying; one undergrad says, “I know of one student who has ever admitted using alcohol and two students who have used marijuana, but it does not seem like a general practice.” Students rave about Southern’s “very spiritual focus” and “religiously loving . . . environment” but are divided about the school’s “rigid” policies, which include a dress code, required worship services, and prohibitions against jewelry, dancing, and serving meat in the cafeteria. Many students believe these rules create “the healthy good influence of a Christian lifestyle,” but others complain that “forc[ing] people to worship [at] designated times . . . makes people want to do it less.”