Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1893 as an academy, became a junior college in 1916, began offering bachelor's degrees in 1964, and was accredited in 1970 by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The college currently confers bachelor's degrees in forty areas and associate degrees in thirteen areas, including nursing and computer information systems. About half of the student body of approximately 700 come from Texas, with nearly 30 percent members of minority groups. The full-time faculty consists of approximately fifty members. Over half of them hold doctorates in their teaching fields, as did the four senior administrative officers of the college at the time of the events to be discussed.

The college is owned and operated by the Southwestern Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, one of nine such regional Adventist col-leges in the United States. Established as an instrument of the church's teaching ministry, it sets forth educa-tional goals relating to the" harmonious development of the mental, physical, social and spiritual nature of man." It is governed by a board of trustees whose