Glittery architecture and a cool prayer room

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This modern rendering of a cross serves as the visitor center at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Ok.

The campus is full of light-reflecting, angular architecture with a glitzy southern feel – though it's debatable among Tulsans whether the city is part of the "South."

A legendary American evangelist and Oklahoma native son, Roberts started the university in 1965 with about 300 students. Last year there were about 3,000 at the four-year liberal arts college.

Roberts, 90, still travels from his home in California for important events.

In 2007, a wrongful termination lawsuit was brought by three former professors against former college president and current head of Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, Richard Roberts, Oral's son.

The college recently was restructured to be funded separately from the evangelistic association.

IMG_2542 Biology major Jessica Pinkston, 22, is in her fifth and final year at the university and plans to go on to medical school.

"I pretty much feel it is the school God wanted me to be at. I haven't regretted a minute of it," she says. "There's a lot of campus rules (curfews, mandatory chapel attendance and a dress code)," she adds. "But in Tulsa there's not much to do after 10 (p.m.), anyway."

My favorite part of the visitor center was the prayer room, where
people can stick rolled up prayers in a wooden cross and write with
colored chalk on two blackboards.

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