LeTourneau University
LeTourneau University is named for its founder, R.G. LeTourneau, one of the world's greatest inventors of earthmoving equipment. A businessman and devout Christian, LeTourneau toured Longview, Texas, with his wife, Evelyn in 1946 to consider a manufacturing site for his next earthmoving equipment factory. While flying over a sprawling complex of a vacated Army hospital consisting of over 200 frame buildings, Mrs. LeTourneau inquired about the facility. When told it was no longer in use, she suggested establishing a school to educate returning World War II veterans.
The site became LeTourneau Technical Institute, founded in 1946 with only male students. In 1961 the school became LeTourneau College, a co-educational four-year school. In 1989 LeTourneau College became LeTourneau University, a SACS and ABET accredited, nondenominational Christian university, offering four-year and two-year degree programs in engineering, technology, the liberal arts, business, aeronautical science, education, and the sciences, plus master's degree programs in business and education.
In that same year, the university began expanding into offering programs for working adults in evening and weekend classes. Calling it the LEAP program, which stood for LeTourneau Education for Adult Professionals, classes with the same students making a group, or cohort, met weekly for six to eight weeks per course. Cohorts were kept on track through to degree completion with students automatically enrolled in each next class, and as each class finished, the next course began in the same location the following week with a different professor. Many other universities have adopted this format to reach working adults.
Today, more than 2,500 students attend LeTourneau University without ever stepping foot onto the university's beautiful main campus in Longview, Texas. These LETU students are working adult students in the university's School of Graduate and Professional Studies. They attend classes online or attend evening and weekend classes at educational centers in Tyler, Dallas, Bedford, Houston and Austin.
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