The 1887 catalog lauded the rural location: "Being in the country, we avoid many of the temptations incident to towns and cities and save our patrons much extravagance in dress."

The scholars are not prodigies; they do not surpass other boys and girls in the state, but they recite with ease, enunciate with distinctiveness, and gave choice sections of music and evidence the good training they had received.

I congratulate the people of Harnett on the excellent advantages Buies Creek Academy offers for the education of the children of the rising generation."

Campbell recalled: "When I ran up to the fire, the terrible fire, that was burning down chances for poor boys and girls, and I knew that I could not build again ... the flames that destroyed the labor of years [...] the only hope for hundreds of boys and girls was being swept away, I could not bear up longer [...] When they asked me my plans, I said, "Well, there's no chance to go on."

Over the next 478 days, he oversaw and supervised nearly every aspect of the academy's reconstruction, from drawing plans and making brick to sawing the lumber and mixing sand and lime.

Within the first few days alone, he had developed the plans to renovate the tabernacle so it could be temporarily used for classroom space; he had arranged for wagons to deliver lumber; and he had brought in carpenters to get to work.

The 1909 catalog noted, "It is built of beautiful brick, made on our own grounds, and is an everlasting monument to the love, loyalty, and sacrifices of our friends ... [who] are in itself a constant inspiration to live something high and noble, and to undertake the impossible."

World War I and the "Great Influenza Outbreak" of 1918 had a significant impact on the academy and the Buies Creek community.

According to Bruce Blackmon, the influenza outbreak also inflicted a serious toll on some families—"If you saw a house and there was no smoke coming out of its chimney, that was an indication that the person responsible for heating the home was no longer alive."

That evening D. Rich – treasurer of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company – spent the night in the Campbell home and that morning they asked how he had slept.

Campbell sold his interest in the academy (appraised at $56,000) to the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina for $28,000; the school was then valued at more than $500,000.

The Board of Education of the Baptist State Convention recommended unanimously that Buies Creek Academy become a junior college, beginning with the 1927–28 academic session.

At that meeting, the Reverend A. C. Hamby made the motion to change the name from Buies Creek Academy to Campbell College, in honor of its founder.

Because of [Campbell's] great love for others, he literally wore himself out serving them, giving poor boys and girls the chance of an education.

He graduated from Buies Creek Academy in 1908 and enrolled in Wake Forest College, along with his younger brother Carlyle.

In the post-war period, Campbell became a fully accredited co-educational Baptist-affiliated liberal arts and vocational college.

Marshbanks Sr. Paul Green, a 1912 Buies Creek Academy alumnus and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, helped establish the Paul Green Theater, located between the D. Rich Administration Building and the Gym in 1934. in 1937, Campbell was the only junior college in North Carolina to offer courses in drama and journalism for college credit.

Like many other colleges throughout the country, intercollegiate athletic programs such as football, baseball, basketball, track, and tennis were temporarily suspended during the war years.

In 1961, the James A. Campbell Administration Building was dedicated and Bryan Hall for women opened "as a cluster of 12 one-story apartment units grouped around an exterior wall" that could house 200 students.

[11] In 2009, the schools gained autonomy from the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina and established a “good faith and cooperative” relationship with it.

[13] Located in the Sandhills of southeastern North Carolina, the university is nestled in the small unincorporated village of Buies Creek near the Cape Fear River.

North of Academic Circle the buildings flank the newly developed Fellowship Commons, a series of brick sidewalks and gathering places that connect the campus from the west on T.T.

Beyond Fellowship Commons lies the north campus which contains several residence halls along with the Taylor Bott Rogers Fine Arts Center (1984) and the Lundy-Fetterman School of Business (1999).

East of Main Street are more of Campbell's athletic facilities including Jim Perry Stadium (baseball), Johnson Memorial Natatorium (swimming), and the John W. Pope, Jr. Convocation Center as well as the Buies Creek post office.

ft. Leon Levine Hall of Medical Science across Highway 421 hosts the new School of Osteopathic Medicine and the Physician Assistant Program.

As of the 2023–2024 academic year, the Camels are a member of the Coastal Athletic Association; they previously competed in the Big South Conference from 2011–2012 to 2022–2023.

The Pine Burr is Campbell University's yearbook, published every spring and given out for free to the students before final exams.

[16] The Lyricist is Campbell University's literary magazine, featuring poetry and prose from students and statewide contributors.

[17] The Campbell Times is the student newspaper at the university, and is published bi-monthly in a tabloid format during the spring and fall semesters.