Founded in 1919, JBU enrolls 2,343 students from 33 states and 45 countries in its traditional undergraduate, graduate, online, and concurrent education programs.

John E. Brown (1879–1957) was not afforded the opportunity to pursue much education, as his family's financial difficulties forced him to begin working at the age of 11.

After his conversion, he became an itinerant Methodist evangelist, with his travels taking him across Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and the Indian Territory.

However, Brown felt that the strong emphasis of that school on education without the benefit of life training was harmful to the students.

As he said in 1903, "It might be my privilege to have a part in the building of school that would turn the minds of youth back from this exaggerated concept of the value of book knowledge, to the realization that all this is valuable only as it becomes a background for, or the foundation under, the real things of life.

[6] Apparently seeking to expand the reach of the growing college, John Brown announced in 1934 that the school was to be changed into a four-year university.

[5] : 54  Spreading the new university's fields of study into new technology, Brown soon purchased a local radio station (KUOA) from which to broadcast Christian programming and his own sermons.

In the 1940s, the close ties between JBU and the Christian fundamentalist movement began to wane, as the university took an unexpected turn away from fundamentalism.

John Brown himself was always a proponent of interdenominationalism, and by aligning himself with Youth for Christ and other evangelical organizations after World War II, JBU was making a statement.

When John Brown Sr. relinquished control of the university (at least in name, since he remained as chairman of the board) in 1948, he began a period of much-needed consolidation.

During World War II the student body had dropped to barely over a hundred, and the high echelons of the school's leadership were being run almost exclusively by the Brown family.

Citing the shifting makeup of the workforce in the 1960s, the president did away with the vocational requirement, with the understanding that each department would provide practical career training as part of its curriculum.

To accompany his praise of Wheaton, he announced that the first consideration of JBU in selecting prospective students would be academic quality, and raising the entrance requirements.

However, the third Brown made sure to maintain JBU's historic emphasis on career training, through its non-liberal arts programs such as Engineering, Construction Management, and Graphic Design.

[8] The former president of Tabor College in Kansas, Lee Balzer, took office after the Ford controversy with a plan to expand the university's reach.

JBU selected Charles (Chip) Pollard, then Professor of English at Calvin College, to take the office of president for the institution.

Students sign a community covenant stating they will abstain from profanity, pornography, extramarital sexual activity, harassment, tobacco use, alcohol use, and gambling.

[12] Staff and faculty are not required to sign this covenant but must sign a statement of faith and employee expectations which include that "Scripture teaches that sexual intimacy is reserved for marriage and that a Christian marriage is a lifelong commitment between one man and one woman " John Brown University made national news when it changed its historically held position not to endorse dancing.

The Cathedral contains a sanctuary for chapel and other assemblies, and the back portion is a three-floor academic building housing the music department and the humanities and social sciences.

The student center itself houses a cafe, an open area for studying, bookstore, post office, and classrooms on the second floor.

John Brown University currently offers 50+ undergraduate majors, with the most popular as of 2022-23 being Nursing, Psychology, Family and Human Service, Kinesiology and Graphic Design - 65.

In the period from 2003 to 2012, JBU rose from eighth to first in U.S. News & World Report rankings for the Baccalaureate Colleges in the Southern region.

John Brown defeated Azusa Pacific University 65–55 at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri.

This 34-year-old tradition brings in record crowds with approximately 2,000 rolls of toilet paper and lands JBU an automatic technical foul for the season.