About
La Sierra University (La Sierra or LSU) is a private, Seventh-day Adventist university in Riverside, California. Founded in 1922 as La Sierra Academy, it later became La Sierra College, a liberal arts college, and then was merged into Loma Linda University (LLU) in 1967 and became the Loma Linda University La Sierra College of Arts and Sciences (or better known as La Sierra Campus of LLU). In 1990, the La Sierra Campus separated from Loma Linda University to become La Sierra University, an independent institution. It is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC), the Adventist Accrediting Association (AAA), and several discipline-based accrediting bodies.
Since becoming independent in 1990, La Sierra University has won multiple national and world titles in the Enactus (formerly Students in Free Enterprise) competition. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, controversy arose involving the teaching of evolution in La Sierra's science curriculum. La Sierra was founded in 1922 when the Southeastern California Conference, one of the regional governing bodies of the Adventist church, obtained 300 acres (120 ha) of land in an unincorporated area of Riverside County from Willits J. Hole. The land was once a part of a large Mexican land grant named Rancho La Sierra, giving La Sierra its current name.