Join us on Oct. 7 or Dec. 16, for our Fall Open Houses. Click here to register now.

Mission

Teaching and learning form the mission of Bethany College. Central to this is providing a liberal arts education for students, including the preparation of professionals, in an atmosphere of study, work, and service.

Goals

In its original charter, the mission of Bethany College was “the instruction of youth in the various branches of science and literature, the useful arts and the learned and foreign languages.”

Founder Alexander Campbell set the purpose of the College to prepare students to become useful and responsible members of society by liberating them from superstition and ignorance, the tyranny of others, and “vulgar prejudices.” Campbell envisioned that upon graduation, students would become their own teachers and pupils and continue their education throughout life.

Today, Bethany College continues to follow that same mission to educate effective, honorable, humane, and intelligent citizens who believe in and will promote the creation of a world of worth and value, integrating critical reason with the convictions of faith, personal accomplishment with ethical responsibility, and individual development with service to others.

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) is an independent corporation and one of two Commission members of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA), which was founded in 1895 as one of six regional institutional accreditors in the United States. The Higher Learning Commission accredits, and thereby grants membership in the Commission and in the North Central Association, to degree-granting educational institutions in the North Central region: Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, New Mexico, South Dakota, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

HLC is recognized by the US Department of Education and the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).

Bethany College has been approved to participate in the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements.

The National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA) is a private nonprofit organization [501(c)(3)] that helps expand students’ access to educational opportunities and ensure more efficient, consistent, and effective regulation of distance education programs.

Recognizing the growing demand for distance education opportunities, higher education stakeholders – including state regulators and education leaders, accreditors, the U.S. Department of Education, and institutions – joined together in 2013 to establish the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (SARA), which streamline regulations around distance education programs.

In partnership with four regional compacts, NC-SARA helps states, institutions, policymakers, and students understand the purpose and benefits of participating in SARA. Today, more than 2,200 institutions in 49-member states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands all voluntarily participate in SARA.