The college was founded in 1884 as the Minister's Institute, and was initially funded by the Colored Baptists of the State of Arkansas.[5] The first principal and teacher was Rev. J.P. Lawson, a white Baptist minister from Joplin, Missouri.[5]
The first president served from 1887 until his death in 1926, Joseph Albert Booker; Booker was formerly enslaved and he was a newspaper editor.[5] Booker was an influential educator and he actively fought against the segregationist policies in Little Rock.[6]
Shortly after Booker became president, the Arkansas Baptist College acquired land at the southwest corner of 16th Street and High Street (now MLK Street),[5] where they built wooden structures that burned down on March 2, 1893. The campus remained at that site,[5] and the cornerstone for the Old Main building was laid on November 2, 1893, but it took several years to complete the building.
The campus has changed over the years, and in 1913, it included a 3-story boys’ dormitory, a manual training building, and the president’s home. In the 1930s, the campus added an education building which housed the library, classrooms, offices, The Baptist Vanguard newspaper print shop, the business department, and the biology room. By 1950, the campus included Old Main, the education building, the boys’ dormitory, an administration building, gymnasium, and two more classroom buildings.
In 1947, during the tenure of president Coggs, the college received its initial two-year accreditation from the Arkansas State Department of Education.[5]
Arkansas Baptist College was accredited by the Higher Learning Commission in 1987. In February 2014, the Commission placed the college on notice that it was at risk for being out of compliance with the commission's criteria for accreditation. In August 2015, the commission gave the college a "Show-Cause" order to present a case that its accreditation should not be withdrawn. The order was withdrawn in November 2016.[7] The commission placed the college on probation in 2019 for failing to meet the accreditation criterion that requires the institution to have adequate resources.[8] In 2022, the college was placed on a three-year probation again.[9]
Old Main (built 1893), the college’s administration building, is the oldest building in the state of Arkansas established for the purpose of educating Black students.[5] Initially, Old Main building housed the kitchen, dining hall, and the home economics department in the basement; offices for the president, the registrar, the business manager, and the dean, as well as the chapel and the girls’ dormitory on the second and third floors. The building was topped by a bell tower, used to signal class periods; however in 1965 the original bell tower was removed.
The Arkansas Baptist athletic teams are called the Buffaloes. The college is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing as an NAIA Independent within the Continental Athletic Conference since the 2021–22 academic year.
Arkansas Baptist competes in ten intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, football, soccer, track & field and wrestling; while women's sports include basketball, soccer, softball and track & field.
Christianity
Education
National Register of Historic Places
United States
