About
California Lutheran University (CLU, Cal Lutheran, or Cal Lu) is a private university in Thousand Oaks, California, United States. It was founded in 1959 and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but is nonsectarian. It opened in 1960 as California Lutheran College and was the first four-year private college in Ventura County. It changed its name to California Lutheran University on January 1, 1986.
It is located on a 290-acre (120 ha) campus, 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Los Angeles. It offers degrees at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels, as well as post-master's and post-bachelor's certificates. CLU offers 36 majors and 34 minors. The university is based in Thousand Oaks, with additional locations in Woodland Hills (Los Angeles), Westlake Village, Oxnard, Santa Maria, and Berkeley.
Cal Lutheran has been called the West Coast's "Cradle of Coaches"; nearly one in four of football coach Bob Shoup's players would go on to coach at some level, while 144 players have become football coaches, and several have been drafted to the National Football League. Particularly many players were drafted following the NAIA Championship win in 1971. The celebration was held at the Hollywood Palladium in conjunction with the Dallas Cowboys that won their first Super Bowl the following month. In college baseball, 24 student players have been drafted for Major League Baseball as of 2014.