Houston Baptist University (HBU) is a private Baptist university in Sharpstown, Houston, Texas. The university was founded in 1960. Its Cultural Arts Center houses three museums: the Dunham Bible Museum, the Museum of American Architecture and Decorative Arts, and the Museum of Southern History.
Campus
It is located in Sharpstown Section 3A,[1][2] within the Southwest Management District (formerly Greater Sharpstown) in Houston, Texas, near the Southwest Freeway.[3]
According to the Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, the land housing HBU is in the Chinatown area.[4]
Campus housing
The Reuben & Rebecca Bates Philips Residence Colleges for Men and Women[5] are two separate residence hall facilities for freshmen, with each serving one gender.
The Sadie & Doug Hodo Residence College[6] is the largest single residential building on campus that houses both genders on opposing sides of the building.
Husky Village,[7] seven apartment buildings with various layouts, are usually reserved for the university and house mostly upper classmen and staff.
Community life and worship
Eighty Community Life and Worship Credits (CLW Credits) are required for graduation from HBU. Transfer students are also allotted 0.75 CLW Credits for each credit hour transferred into the university. CLW Credits may be accrued from a variety of opportunities including: campus service, a weekly traditional chapel service known as Convocation, a weekly student-led contemporary worship service known as Quest, small group Bible studies, lecture series and through the Assisting Communities Through Students office which coordinates community service and volunteer work in the Houston community. The on-campus "Community Life and Worship" biyearly magazine lists the different opportunities through which students may earn CLW Credits. The spiritual life office also awards Credits for students who participate in church or university sponsored mission trips.
The university was granted an exception to Title IX in 2017 which allows it to legally discriminate against LGBT students for religious reasons.[8] University president Robert Sloan has stated that gay people do not need civil rights protections because like "a tendency towards arson or theft" homosexuality is a sinful tendency.[9]
Athletics
Houston Baptist is a member of the Southland Conference. They joined the league in 2013. From 2008 to 2013, Houston Baptist competed as a member of the Great West Conference, winning the league's final championship at the 2013 GWC Baseball Tournament. The Great West, which had previously been a football-only conference, expanded on July 10, 2008, to become an all-sports conference. HBU accepted an invitation to join the newly expanded conference along with NJIT, North Dakota, South Dakota, University of Texas–Pan American and Utah Valley University.
HBU, which was a member of NCAA Division I until moving to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) in 1989, began its transition back to Division I in 2007–2008. The Huskies field teams in 17 sports.
Men: basketball, baseball, American football, soccer, indoor track and field, outdoor track and field, cross-country, golf
- HBU's American football program began in 2013.[10]
Women: basketball, softball, volleyball, beach volleyball, soccer, indoor track and field, outdoor track and field, cross country, golf
The HBU baseball team participated in the 2015 NCAA Baseball Tournament, winning the Southland Conference Tournament championship in Sugar Land, Texas, and advanced to the Houston Regional, hosted by the University of Houston.
Women's soccer participated in the 2014 NCAA Tournament, winning the Southland Conference Tournament championship in Beaumont, Texas, before falling to No. 5 Texas A&M in the first round.
Women's soccer made their second appearance in the NCAA tournament in 2016 after winning the Southland Conference Tournament championship in Corpus Christi, Texas. They fell to No. 1 Stanford in the first round.
During the 2016 Southland Conference Women's Basketball Tournament, senior Anna Strickland posted 21 points, 31 rebounds, eight assists, and seven blocked shots in the Huskies' first-round loss to Lamar University. Her 31 rebounds broke the Southland Conference single-game record, established a new tournament record, and were the most rebounds in Division I women's basketball in 2016. Strickland's all-around stat sheet has not been achieved in men's or women's Division I basketball or the NBA in the past twenty years.
Two student athletes have earned CoSIDA Academic All-American status: volleyball's Allison Doerpinghaus and men's soccer's Bryan Brody. Both students earned the honor in 2015. They join numerous student-athletes who have earned CoSIDA Academic All-District and academic all-conference honors, and numerous Academic All-American at the NIAA level.
Notable NCAA D-1 athletic achievements:
- 1983 NCAA high-jump champion, Ricky Thompson; t-32nd place in the 1983 Track & Field Championships
- Alma Mater of European Tour great Colin Montgomerie
- 1983-84 Men's basketball team participated in the NCAA tournament in the play-in game vs. Alcorn State; 1983-84 Men's basketball team led the entire NCAA in team field-goal percentage, shooting 55.2% - this is also tenth all-time in NCAA history[11]
- Participants in the NCAA men's golf championships in 1984, 1987 (5th place), and 1988
- Participants in the NCAA men's gymnastics championships in 1982 (10th place) and 1987 (7th place); 1987 men's gymnastics (Rings) champion, Paul O'Neill
- 1982, 83, 84, 85 Trans-America (now Atlantic Sun) Men's soccer Champions, and conference tournament champions in 82, 84, and 85[12]
- 1982, 83, 84, 85 Trans-America (now Atlantic Sun) men's cross country champions; individual titles won by Charlie Foreman (83 & 84) and Magnus Fyhr (85)
Notable NAIA athletic achievements:
- 2007 NAIA Baseball World Series, third place; 2007 Baseball Region VI Champions
- Participants in NAIA Men's Basketball Tournament ten straight seasons from 1997 to 2007[13]
- Dwight Jones II, son of Dwight Jones Sr. who played on the 1972 USA Olympic Silver medal basketball team in Munich, was drafted by the Tulsa 66ers of the NBA Developmental League as well as the East Kentucky Miners in the CBA draft[14]
