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Pacific University was first chartered as Tualatin Academy. The Academy was a college preparatory school that drew its name from the Tualatin (or Atfalati) Kalapuya tribe, who were the original inhabitants of what is now Forest Grove.
Before the charter, Tualatin Academy began as a home and school for orphaned and abandoned children. It was led by a woman named Tabitha Moffatt Brown, who taught them in a log cabin donated by the missionary Harvey Clark. The site of this cabin is marked with a monument on the southwest side of campus. Within months of the establishment of the log cabin school, a Congregational Church minister named George H. Atkinson proposed converting it to “an academy that shall grow into a college.” Tualatin Academy was thus chartered in 1849 with the expectation that a college program would soon be added.
In 1854 a new charter was issued granting full privileges to “Tualatin Academy and Pacific University.” This established what is now Pacific University’s College of Arts & Sciences. The two institutions operated together until World War I, when high school classes at the Academy were discontinued.
From the beginning, Pacific University admitted men and women together, and it has always been open to all races. Although many of Pacific’s founders were Congregational ministers, it has never been under direct control of a church. Openness has been a part of Pacific’s values from the beginning, but our history also includes mistakes. Today the university acknowledges with regret its historic support for the Forest Grove Indian School (1880-85), and for policies that treated students of different genders, religions, races, sexual identities, abilities or cultural backgrounds inequitably. Pacific University continues to work towards a more inclusive community where diverse faculty, staff and students all belong, and towards a just society for all.
Pacific University has grown from its origins as a small liberal arts college into a comprehensive, independent university. Some landmarks in the development of its undergraduate program include: Old College Hall opened, 1850; first degree awarded, 1863; first scientific and teaching degrees offered, 1869; modern subject majors offered, 1903; pre-professional programs began, 1924. Graduate and professional degrees have been offered at Pacific University since 1945 with the establishment of the Optometry program. Today, Pacific offers a diverse array of graduate programs in health professions, education, and the arts and sciences alongside its undergraduate programs.
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