David Jang Olivet University Founder

By the time Dr. David Jang founded Olivet University, his years of grassroots mission work on foot and through digital media had carried the good seed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to many far-reaching corners of the world, including places hostile to Christian faith. The thankful result was a harvest of men and women devoted to Jesus Christ and working together for the Great Commission to "go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

Olivet started humbly as a church school that functioned as a "seedbed" for missionary training and service. (The original meaning of the word "seminary" is "seedbed.") Dr. Jang recognized the benefits of further formalizing this training. In the year 2000, Olivet Theological College and Seminary (OTCS) was established in both Los Angeles and in Seoul, Korea.

As the seminary expanded, Dr. Jang decided to make the institution's new home in San Francisco under the official name "Olivet University" when he incorporated the school on March 3, 2004. San Francisco seemed an ideal place to call home. In addition to the blessing of gorgeous weather, San Francisco also featured rich ethnic diversity that continues to be reflected in Olivet’s diverse faculty and student population. San Francisco also provided a vibrant start-up scene that would act like an incubator to accelerate the growth of the young University.

Starting off in a humble basement office in downtown San Francisco, Dr. Jang led Olivet to quickly align itself with the needs of the Great Commission and the worldwide Christian community by adding a number of schools to its flagship school, Olivet Theological College & Seminary: Jubilee College of Music; Olivet College of Journalism; Olivet College of Art & Design; and Olivet Institute of Technology.

Dr. Jang also invited onto the faculty Dr. William Wagner, a renowned mission strategist and Professor of Missions at the neighboring Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. Seeing a shared passion for saving souls in Dr. Jang and Olivet students, Dr. Wagner in turn introduced a number of talented local faculty members to teach at Olivet full time, and continues to devote himself to service at Olivet to this day.

In 2005, by the grace of God, Dr. Jang settled Olivet into the former University of California Berkeley Downtown Extension Campus. Steps away from the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco (the Moscone Center), the campus came perfectly prepared with educational facilities of exceptional quality for carrying out Olivet's mission.

In 2006, Dr. David Jang decided it was time to pursue his passion for mission-field work fulltime. Completing his term, he handed over the presidency to Dr. David James Randolph. On July 17, 2006 Dr. Randolph received the honor of becoming Olivet University's 2nd University President, while Dr. Jang assumed the role of the University's International President, giving leadership to the school's mission outreach to the farthest reaches of the world.

The school that Dr. Jang founded flourished in the years that followed. In 2009, the University had received institutional accreditation by the Association for Biblical Higher Education. New schools of Language Education and Business were added, as well as expanded authority to offer a full range of degree programs, including the research doctorate.

During this time Olivet experienced similar growth in the area of key partnerships, particularly with Olivet's Global Partner the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), where Dr. Jang also serves as a Board member on the WEA North American Council. In 2010, Olivet's collaborative relationship with the WEA, which represents over 600 million Christians, produced the World Evangelical Alliance Leadership Institute, providing quality leadership development programs for WEA leaders all over the world.

The vision cast by Dr. Jang, to establish formal theological training to prepare young men and women to transform the world through Christian mission, has resulted in a school that continues to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.

Finance Course's Mid-Point Offers Challenges and Inspiration

Olivet University's MBA students involved with the the mid-point of the business college's finance class expressed their feelings as "being challenged and inspired."

The course takes students into the deeper realm of financial accounting including theory and practice designed for use in real case scenarios.  This course uses business cases extensively, designed to replicate actual business decision-making situations.  The class contents were meant to be very practical and useful for real affairs in business corporations.

"I would say studying Finance is quite a challenge to me as the level of demand is rising.  The case study approach methods are also quite fresh to me," said Helio Pereire, a first year student from Italy. "However, I am gaining useful knowledge to apply in the area of business for my future business ventures  believe that it can be used greatly for God’s purpose," continued Pereire.

Students seek to apply skills learned in proper bookkeeping and analyzing financial statements towards identifying company financial health.  In today's highly competitive and evolving business environment, decisions of great significance are expected to be made quicker then ever.  Immersing students within this environment at an earlier stage can familiarize them with reliable analysis of data and information, which are delivered at a rapid pace.

The objective of this course is to enable the participants not only to better understand, acquire, and utilize the rich information produced by these accounting systems, but also to be able to identify the information required and how to request such information. 

For more information, visit the Olivet College of Business website  http://ocb.olivetuniversity.edu.

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Drupal 8 overview

Drupal 8 beta release is approaching soon. It is estimated winter 2013.
Drupal 8 will bring a major change in Drupal and even CMS community is that it will adopts many components from the Symfony framework.

http://www.duoconsulting.com/blog/drupal-8-developer%27s-view

So in Drupal 8, you can easily use Symfony to build custom modules, and use Composer to manage components like rails Gem bundle.

So if you are a Drupal developer, start to learn Symfony right now. If you learn Symfony, you will find its core idea is inherited from Django.

Anyway, Drupal 8 + Symfony will be very powerful.

Dutchess County Will see New Educational Development

     On behalf of Wallace & Wallace LLP posted in Development on Friday, August 16, 2013.

Land originally purchased in 2003 in Dutchess County has changed hands again and finally has a development plan in place. For ten years, the Dover Knolls Development property sat unused, but Olivet Management LLC recently purchased the land in order to build a research and technology institution. The company is tied to Olivet University based in San Francisco. The property purchased includes 503 acres on the Dover development and an option to buy additional land on the other side of the development.

Before Olivet, another company bought the land, which used to house a psychiatric center. The first company who owned the property also wanted to use the property for educational purposes, but there were no colleges or universities interested at the time. The company then tried a different route and applied for state permits in order to build a residential and commercial development. Even in the span of ten years, the plan was still a long way from approval and building construction even further away. That's when Olivet stepped up and worked out a deal.

The community can now look forward to the regrowth of a dormant property. The educational facilities should also help the local community economy. Developers expect the local town will host the educational facilities and information technology center, as well as a place for research and development. In the next few years, developers want to enroll 2,500 students. Students will be housed in the community providing opportunities for retail and business growth. The plan should also create some jobs. It is expected that around 750 full-time teachers and staff will be needed.

With major development plans like this, buyers and sellers on both sides should work extensively to negotiate the terms of the deal. When big money changes hands, it is important that nothing is overlooked. Local property owners surrounding the development can also work with real estate attorneys if any issues arise with the purported used of the new development or if a dispute arises from the building plans.

Source

Dover Knolls site sold to Olivet Management

After a decade of uncertainty, the Dover Knolls Development property was purchased by Olivet Management LLC to create a research institution and technology hub, according to a release from Olivet.

Olivet Management, on behalf of San Francisco-based Olivet University, said the land in the Town of Dover will accommodate educational facilities, retail vendors, an information technology center and a research and development site.

“Olivet Management is pleased to have the opportunity to restore and revitalize this dormant property,” said spokeswoman Anna Oh. “We are also thankful to help contribute to the economic development of the Dover community.”

See more at: http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20130806/NEWS01/130806028/Dover-Knolls-site-sold-Olivet-Management

Correction to TMI article on Olivet University

In a meeting with representatives of Olivet University and Olivet Management late last week, this paper learned that Olivet University in San Francisco has approximately 250 on-campus students and is in its tenth year of operation. It has seven areas of specialization, forming seven colleges. They are Theology, Music, Graphic Design, Journalism, Language Education, Business and Information Technology.

Olivet Management was formed to run the properties that have been acquired with a view to expanding the university. In addition to the Dover Knolls property in the Town of Dover, Olivet Management currently manages other properties in the United States, including one in Houston, Texas.  

Olivet University presently has a business school that offers business courses in New York City. It has applied for a charter from the New York State Department of Education that would authorize it to create a new, Christian based university in the state.

Tony Chiu, a trustee of Olivet University, said the university has a five-year plan for the Dover campus that anticipates a population of 500 students in the first year, pending necessary approvals. Olivet is still in the preliminary planning stages, however, so no plans are firm. Mr. Chiu explained that funds have been promised from alumni and friends for the development of the Dover campus.

Corrections

The Olivet representatives pointed out that last week’s front page story (August 14) incorrectly inferred a connection between the university’s founder, David Jang, and the Unification Church.

Ms. Oh made it clear that Olivet’s theology is in the Presbyterian tradition and is not connected at all to the Unification Church.

Olivet also pointed out that Jang is not formally associated with the organizations listed, but the university has knowledge-sharing and internship programs in place. Jang currently serves as its international president and a professor of the seminary. 

We also identified Mr. William Wagner as president and chancellor of Olivet.  He is no longer president.  The current president is Dr. Tracy Davis. 

This paper regrets it used information found on the Internet without checking its reliability.  

 Source

Olivet University Student-Developed Search Engine For Ministry

Olivet University's Institute of Technology, OIT, graduate students are teaming up with OIT alumni to build out a search engine for enhanced functionality and produce improved search results.  The solution involves looking at its current method of data sharing networks and tweaks the data gathering and search process to generate more relevant results. 

Olivet Institute of Technology students investigate into controlling the depth of crawling with robots.txt rules.  Other parts include parsing the content according to keywords and creating indexes with greater relevance to content as well as optimizing the index for faster search results.  Parts of the development and research will be happening during the Information Storage and Retrieval course this fall quarter.

The technique of search engine is a small piece of cloud of the search engine of Christian world. "It can contribute to web evangelism and influence the global culture in near future." Shared the developer of this search engine.

The results of this research project can contribute to web evangelism for a global audience. The trends in ministries have included increasing searches and data visibility that is more specific to targeted users.  Content ranges from photos, news, social media, and videos.  The customized search engines project is planned to be an extraordinary opportunity for research and entrepreneurial opportunities for Olivet students.

http://olivetuniversity.edu/news/articles/2013/07/08/815/olivet-university-student-developed-search-engine-for-ministry.html