169 Biola expanded its evangelistic and missionary outreach by establishing in Mainland China the Hunan Bible Institute to train Chinese nationals to evan- - - =..-__.. ........ -.~-- ,,, __,__ __ gelize their own people. It was in operation until until the Communist take- over in 1949. Another step was the establishment in 1929 of the annual Missionary Conference, a week-long event given entirely to missions, with speakers chal- lenging Biola students to serve on various mission fields of the world. Fol- lowing, in 1945, the School of Missionary Medicine was established with the single purpose of preparing Biola graduates and others for the same kind of service. Biola continued its strong emphasis on missions and evangelism through . . the development of the Missions Department in 1968 under the leadership and direction of President Clyde Cook, who was Chairman of the Department. At that time a major in Social Science and Missions was established in the Division of Social Science. This combination of studies was intended to provide the prospective missionaries the best background possible in the his- tory and culture of people with whom they would work, and to comple.ment and enhance the sound Bible training they received in other departments. In 1978 this program was modified and enlarged to provide the present Bachelor of Arts degree in·Intercultural Studies. Later, the M. A. degree program in Missions was introduced in Talbot Seminary. All these programs were forerunners of the new School of Intercultur Studies and World Missions, which was officially inaugurated in the Fall of 1983, with Dr. Marvin K. Mayers, Ph. D., as its Dean, a faculty of nine mem- bers, an enrollment of eighty students in the undergraduate courses, and fifty in the graduate program. Since that time the number of both faculty and students has increased considerably • .. Perhaps the main motivating force in the establishment of the program · in intercultural studies was to correct a mistake the Church·has made for
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter