who donated $1 million in 1985 to help establish the Pearson Library. California Lutheran University remained the only four-year university in Ventura County as of 1989. In 1995, CLU was the only four-year university in Ventura County.
Notable visitors to CLU events include U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan in 1979 and Gerald Ford in 1981; Bob Hope in 1984; Nicaraguan president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro in 1991; President George H. W. Bush in 1990; and former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in 2018.
=== Background and origins ===
As far back as the turn of the 20th century, when the first Norwegian Lutheran settlers came to the Conejo Valley, Lutherans had the dream of one day establishing a college of their own. U.S. Senator Leland Stanford had offered a 50-acre (20 ha) lot near Palo Alto, California, to Swedish Lutherans, but withdrew the offer when asked to fund the construction. Decades later in 1928, a group of Los Angeles developers gave a 100-acre (40 ha) site in Del Rey Hills in order to establish …
