ABSTRACT
In 1994 the Seventh-day Adventist Church operated three universities and ten colleges in the United States (US), with a combined enrollment of approximately 18,000 students. Australia had the advantage of being beyond the reach of the conservative Adventist leadership in the US. In addition, it was a new mission field for Seventh-day Adventists. The new school initiated a new strand of Seventh-day Adventist collegiate education the “self-supporting” college. Battle Creek College is an important institution in Adventist educational history not only because of its “firstness,” but because it received a great deal of attention in terms of policy formation and goal statements. The central place of the Bible and the role of history as seen from the biblical perspective were recommended as the foremost studies in Adventist education. Reform was also at the base of the explosion in the number of Adventist schools and colleges in the 1890s.
