Qualla: Liberty University

Liberty University: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit EOverbey, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Freedom Tower at the center of Liberty University's Lynchburg campus is 275 feet tall and seventeen stories — the tallest building in the city since it was completed in 2018, easily eclipsing the 1931 Allied Arts skyscraper downtown. The tower holds a 25-bell carillon and a replica Liberty Bell. The carillon sounds out across the Virginia foothills at the hours. From across the James River, the tower is the most visible thing in Lynchburg, and what it announces is that the city's center of gravity has moved. Liberty University now enrolls roughly 96,000 students — about 15,000 on campus, the rest online — and that is a startling number for an institution that began in 1971 with a handful of students in borrowed church space.

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Image: EOverbey | CC BY-SA 3.0

Liberty University: Lynchburg Baptist, Then Liberty

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Northern-Virginia-Photographer, CC0. Jerry Falwell Sr. was already pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church when he and Elmer L. Towns founded Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971. Falwell served as the school's first chancellor while running the church and, beginning in 1979, building the Moral Majority into a national po...

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Image: Northern-Virginia-Photographer | CC0

Liberty University: The Online Revolution

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wolfy54, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1985, Liberty started mailing VHS tapes to distance learners. That homemade beginning eventually became Liberty University Online, the largest single contributor to the university's enrollment, revenue, and political footprint. By the late 2010s, around 80,000 of Liberty's stu...

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Image: Wolfy54 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Liberty University: Politics on Campus

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain. From its founding, Liberty has been openly entangled with Republican politics. Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and many others have spoken on campus. In 2004, the School of Government was named for Jesse Helms, the former North C...

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Image: The White House from Washington, DC | Public domain

Liberty University: Controversies, Numbers, Now

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit TaurusEmerald, CC BY-SA 4.0. Liberty's recent history is complicated. In 2021 a dozen women sued the school, alleging it had failed to address sexual assault and discouraged reporting under the umbrella of the Liberty Way. A 2023 preliminary report by the U.S. Department of Education found that university of...

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Image: TaurusEmerald | CC BY-SA 4.0