Edward Waters College

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Edward Waters College is a private college located in Jacksonville, Florida. It was founded in 1866 to educate freed slaves and is the oldest historically black college in Florida. The first AME pastor in the state, Rev. William G. Steward, originally named the college Brown Theological Institute. The school went through some financial difficulties and closed for much of the 1870s. It reopened in 1883 with an extended educational program and its current name.

The original Edward Waters College was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1901, but by 1904 new land was obtained and work was started on the new college. Edward Waters was accredited as a junior college in 1955 under President William B. Stewart and 5 years later had a restored four year curriculum. Beginning in 1979 the school was accredited as a four-year institution by Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and started awarding bachelor's degrees. The college's accreditation was last reaffirmed in 2006.

Enrollment in 2004 was 987 students and wholly made up by undergraduates. During that period tuition for full-time undergraduate was $9,176. Several notable Edward Waters graduates include former Jacksonville sheriff Nat Glover, former Florida State Senator Betty Holzendorf (D-Jacksonville), author and scholar Dr. Fredrick Douglass Harper and Television and Film Personality and former Commissioner Rahman Johnson. The school awarded honorary degrees to U.S. Representative Corrine Brown, Florida State Representative Willye Dennis and John Delaney, former mayor of Jacksonville and current president of the University of North Florida. Brown also served on the school's faculty.

The current president of the school is Dr. Oswald P. Bronson, former President of Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida. The Double E principle Excellence and Ethics (E2) is what promises to lead the school into an even greater future.

Centennial Hall, which contains the Obi-Scott-Umunna Collection of African Art, is the oldest building on campus. Built in 1916, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on May 4, 1976.