About SWU
Since its founding by The Wesleyan Church in 1906, Southern Wesleyan University has been a Christian community of learners that recognizes God as the source of all truth and wisdom. The university seeks to create an atmosphere in which members of the community work together toward wholeness by seeking to integrate faith, learning, and daily life.
Located in Central, South Carolina, the university is a half-way point between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia. The Town of Central was once an important mid-way stop when the railroad was the primary means of transportation between those historic cities. The University is thirty minutes from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and ten minutes from Clemson University, with whom it shares some cooperative programs.
The university evolved from a small Bible institute first chartered as Wesleyan Methodist College in 1909. It is now a four-year, private, liberal arts college that was first regionally accredited in 1973. Historically, the founders of the college understood linguistic, quantitative, and analytical skills to be the foundation of a liberal arts education. Further, they believed that the cultivation of this curriculum within the context of faith, worship, studies in religion, and service to others created a fertile soil for intellectual and spiritual growth. Thus, the college ensured that every student would be well grounded in these areas by developing a general education curriculum of liberal arts studies. That tradition is alive today. All undergraduate programs, on-campus and online, contain a core curriculum in the liberal arts.
As a ministry of The Wesleyan Church and in service to the global Church, Southern Wesleyan prepares students for leadership in religion, education, music, business, medicine, law, science, and a variety of civic and social service professions. Graduate programs are offered in the fields of education and business. In 2018, the University moved to a level-five institution with the introduction of its first doctoral program in the School of Education and Music.
Although the university serves the Southeast, the student population blends cultural, ethnic, and regional diversity drawn from both the United States and the international community; thus, encouraging a broad cross-cultural sharing of Christian values. Ideal graduates of Southern Wesleyan have a healthy respect for themselves and others as bearers of God’s image and are prepared to confront a rapidly changing world with skills in communication, information processing, analysis, synthesis, and problem-solving.