On a bleak January day in 1890, a caravan of sleighs found their way to the crest of a hill to the southwest of Lincoln, Nebraska. The group sought a central location for a Seventh-day Adventist college in the Midwest.
Even though the weather didn’t give a warm welcome to the locating committee, generous incentives offered by the city of Lincoln swayed church leaders to choose the blustery Nebraska knoll over possible sites in several neighboring states. While visiting the future college site L.A. Hoopes, the locating committee secretary, planted his heel in the snow and exclaimed, “Here is where the southwest corner of the College Building should be.”
His prophetic wisdom was fulfilled to the letter; it marked almost the exact spot where the administration building was later built, opening for classes on Sept. 30, 1891.
Fast forward to 2016. Union College has grown along with the city of Lincoln, and that barren field of 125 years ago has been transformed into 50 beautiful, tree covered acres surrounded by a thriving community ranked in the past several years as one of the best places to live by a number of national print and online publications.
But an Adventist education is about more than trees and towns. From our halls have walked more than 10,000 teachers, nurses, missionaries, scientists, physicians, business leaders, pastors, communicators—nurtured and trained by godly faculty and staff—who have gone on to change their communities here and abroad, and help shape the Adventist denomination.
