The Adventist College in Ohio Seeks University Status
August 11, 2017: Kettering College, the Adventist higher education institution in the Dayton metropolitan area will seek university status and change its name by the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year. Faculty and staff were informed yesterday by Email that this decision has been voted by the college board.
The college has more than 700 students in undergraduate and graduate programs in health and human service specialties, including nursing and physician assistants. It began to operate 50 years ago under the auspices of the Kettering Health Network, the Adventist health ministry that operates eight hospitals and about 20 community clinics in the region.
The college plans to offer more doctoral and other graduate programs in the future. It may also expand the two years of general education and religion courses that it offers.
The college and the health care organization are named after Charles F. Kettering, one of America’s most prolific inventors and one of the key leaders, along with the Wright brothers, in making the city in western Ohio a significant early 20th century technology center. His son raised money to start the Kettering Memorial Hospital in the 1960s and asked the Adventist denomination to take on control of the institution.
There is some work to be done in establishing the new name for the university because there is already a Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, which has no relationship with the Dayton institutions. The institution’s leaders plan to reveal the new name at the 2018 graduation event next spring and begin operating under it as the new school year starts in the fall, reported the Dayton Daily News.
There are about 4,500 Adventists in 15 congregations among the 800,000 population of the five-county metropolitan area. In addition to the college and health care programs, the Adventist denomination operates Good Neighbor House, a major social services agency; Spring Valley Academy, a K-12 school; and three child care centers in the area. It is the strongest presence by Adventists in any city in America’s Midwest.
