DIU prepares students holistically to pursue the future to which their faith and discernment are leading them. Holistic preparation includes fostering spiritual formation, resilience, rigorous learning, professionalism, and real-world experience.
DALLAS INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Preparing global leaders to partner with local communities
The modern world is interconnected through the forces of globalization. DIU focuses on the intersections of language, culture, and faith to understand the needs and assets of local communities around the world. As our alumni partner with communities in more than 80 countries, we prepare graduates for language acquisition, culture acquisition, or both.
Our common Christian faith beckons us to take the lead in loving our neighbor both at home and abroad. To love others through partnership and service across cultural boundaries requires innovation, sensitivity, and leadership. As our graduates relate to leaders from other communities and combine their experience and skills, together they can forge solutions to locally expressed problems.
DIU emphasizes the importance of partnership in cross-cultural work. Our graduates acquire skills and knowledge through which they provide necessary skills to organizations and communities around the globe. Through community conversations to understand their needs and goals, our graduates work in multicultural teams to address locally expressed needs. To work in such teams requires specific interpersonal skills and appropriate attitudes that foster healthy teamwork and a spirit of partnership.
DIU prepares leaders to engage needs or problems that are expressed by local communities around the world. In our domains of expertise, communities have expressed desires for language development, Bible translation, literacy, Scripture engagement, education, arts, and more. In many cases, local communities have already initiated projects but have asked for additional partners to assist in specialized domains such as linguistics, biblical studies, world arts, and education.
Our History
1972
Classes commence on the International Linguistics Center in Dallas, TX under the name Texas-SIL. Students earned MA degrees in partnership with University of Texas at Arlington.
1998
Texas-SIL decides to seek regional accreditation and reorganizes itself on March 31, 1998 as the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL).
1999
GIAL opens its doors to the first incoming class under a license from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. GIAL offers MA programs in Applied Linguistics and in Language Development.
2000
The first graduates receive their degrees in June 2000.
2003
GIAL becomes a candidate for accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to award master-level degrees.
2005
GIAL receives full regional accreditation.
2013
GIAL establishes its BA program with an inaugural major in International Service.
2015
The Center for Excellence in World Arts was launched to further GIAL’s collaboration with organizations fostering education in world arts.
2017
In 2017, GIAL began offering a four-year Bachelor of Arts degree, with the first students at the freshman or sophomore level starting in the Spring of 2018.
2018
On September 1, 2018, GIAL becomes Dallas International University. This change reflected its new status as a three-tier university that resulted from the newly approved PhD program in World Arts.
2021
DIU approves two new Master of Arts programs in Translation Advising and in Human Migration.
2022
DIU approves a new BA major in Scripture and Culture, integrating the worlds of biblical studies and anthropology.
2023
DIU launches its innovative Graduate Certificate in Translation Consulting to combine field experience, organizational mentoring, and academic preparation.

Alumni Impact
Our alumni are impacting communities around the world! They are translators, linguists, literacy workers, language surveyors, Scripture engagement consultants, ethnomusicologists, and cross-cultural workers in a variety of fields. They have used their DIU training to serve with over 60 organizations in more than 80 different countries around the world.
“As a faculty member, I think of my former students with immense pride and joy because of their commitment, capability and depth. DIU alumni are in high demand as advisors, trainers and leaders because they are already familiar with both real practical field issues and scholarly thinking in their domains. I would be glad to work with any DIU alum that I know.”
T. Wayne Dye, Ph.D.
Dallas International Faculty
Mission Statement
Accreditation
Get In Touch
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