Orville Dahl Memorial Scholarship

What began as a dream of a Lutheran college in Southern California became reality through the effective leadership of Dr. Orville Dahl, CLC’s founding president. In the words of a later president, Dr. Luther Luedtke, Dr. Dahl “was a man of extraordinary faith, courage and leadership who envisioned a great institution of Christian higher education where others saw only chicken coops and fields of dirt.”

Orville Dahl was indeed a gifted individual. He had been chosen to develop CLC by the Evangelical Lutheran Church because of his diverse talents and broad experience. A graduate of St. Olaf College in Minnesota, he had majored in history, political science and education at the same time that he was football coach, debate coach and director of the forensics program. During World War II he served in the Navy in command of officer training units at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After the war, he went to graduate school, earning a master’s degree and doctorate in education from UC Berkeley. He served at several academic institutions before accepting the challenge of founding a Lutheran college in Southern California.

Although Dr. Dahl’s service as president of the new college was brief, he left his mark on the institution. He wrote the lyrics of CLU’s Alma Mater and he designed the college seal that bears the words, “Love of Christ, Truth and Freedom.” Each new regent on the CLU board learned of Dr. Dahl’s significant contribution to the school’s progress in becoming the example of quality education envisioned from the beginning.

In 1995, at the annual reunion of CLU’s former regents, the group decided that the campus needed more reminders of Dr. Dahl’s dynamic and formative leadership. They conceived the notion of creating and endowing a scholarship in his name. To establish such a scholarship many of those present made pledges on the spot. Other supporters received a letter detailing the plan. The response was unanimous and the scholarship soon established. At the regents’ reunion in 1996, Ms. Jean Dahl, Orville’s widow, learned of the efforts of the former regents to honor her husband. It was a delightful surprise.

Even with all the possible choices of criteria for the awarding of the endowed Orville Dahl Memorial Scholarship, the regents decided to make it a scholarship with only one criterion—the recipient was to be an undergraduate history major. This scholarship is now part of CLU’s history, and regents past and present can take pride in having made it happen.