Wayland Baptist University (WBU) is private, coeducational Baptist university based in Plainview, Texas. Wayland Baptist has a total of 14 campuses in five Texas cities, six states, American Samoa and Kenya. On August 31, 1908, the university was chartered by the state of Texas, under the name Wayland Literary and Technical Institute. The university had another name change in 1910 to Wayland Baptist College. In 1981, it attained university status and settled with the current name, Wayland Baptist University. It currently has a total enrollment of approximately 5,000.^[2]

In 1906, the Staked Plains Baptist Association purposed the creation of a school. Dr. and Mrs. James Henry Wayland offered $10,000 and 25 acres (100,000 m2) of land in Plainview if the Staked Plains Baptist Association and the citizens of the city would raise an additional $40,000.^[3] In 1910, the school offered its first classes despite the administration building not yet being fully built. A total of 225 students were taking classes in primary education through junior college levels during the school's first term. After a public school system was well established in Plainview, the elementary grades were discontinued. Wayland Baptist gained membership to the American Association of Junior Colleges in 1926 and would later be approved as a senior college by the Texas Department of Education and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the Texas Education Agency for teacher education training.^[3]

The school is the oldest institution of higher education in continuous existence on the High Plains of Texas due to the leadership of Dr. George W. McDonald, the fifth president of the school. When a run on the banks during the Great Depression threatened to close the school, the administration and faculty agreed to forgo pay to continue the task of educating students, trusting God to supply their needs.^[4]

In 1951, a black teacher approached the college asking if she could fulfill continuing education requirements at the college. Dr. James W. "Bill" Marshall, the school's sixth president, led the college to take the historic step to admit black students to the college, making Wayland the first four-year liberal arts college in the former Confederate states to integrate voluntarily.^[5] This action came three years before the Supreme Court's decision to ban school segregation, Brown v. Board of Education.

The Malouf Abraham Family Arts Center on the Wayland campus was endowed by the family of the late State Representative Malouf Abraham, Sr., and his son, Malouf Abraham, Jr., a retired allergist and active art collector from Canadian, the seat of Hemphill County in the northeastern Texas Panhandle.

A musical scholarship has been established at Wayland in honor of Sybil Leonard Armes, a Christian writer and alternate poet laureate of Texas in 1969, who was the mother of Wayland President Paul Woodson Armes.

In 1979, the Hawaii campus opened as Wayland's first outside of Texas. Twelve satellite campuses are now located throughout the US.^[6]

In May 2008, entertainer Jimmy Dean, a Plainview native, announced that he was making the largest ever gift to Wayland.^[7]

In 2013, Wayland was ranked as the #72 university in the West Region by US News.^[1]

In 2014, Wayland was recognized as having some of the most affordable online degree programs in the United States.^[8] They have the most affordable online nursing degree program in the country, as well as the 12th most affordable online education degree program.

Wayland Baptist teams, nicknamed athletically as the Pioneers, with their exceptional women's basketball team known as the Hutcherson Flying Queens, are part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing in the Sooner Athletic Conference.. Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cheerleading, cross country, dance, football, golf, soccer, track and field, and wrestling; women's sports include basketball, cheerleading, cross country, dance, golf, soccer, track and field, volleyball, and wrestling. Until 2018, Wayland Baptist was the only college in Texas to offer a wrestling program.

On April 1, 2010, Wayland Baptist announced its intention to bring back the football program and join the Central States Football League in 2012. On December 8, 2010, the Pioneers introduced Jeff Lynn, former head coach of New Mexico Military Institute, as the first head coach in over 70 years. On April 24, 2011, Lynn stepped down from head coach because of family reasons. He would be replaced by former Lubbock Coronado High School coach Butch Henderson.

The cross country and track and field program have won a total of 14 national championships. The programs compete at notable track meets and cross country events such as the Cowboy Jamboree, Texas Relays, Drake Relays, and the Micheal Johnson Classic. In 2012, Wayland's men's track team won the NAIA National Championship by a margin of 38 points, which was the largest margin of victory in 23 years. Four Wayland athletes won individual championships, in addition to Wayland winning the 4x400 relay championship.^[9]

Wayland's women's basketball program, The Hutcherson Flying Queens, has the distinction of being the winningest team in women's collegiate basketball history. On November 30, 2017, during the 2017-18 season, the Flying Queens posted their 1600th win, 300 plus more wins than any other women's collegiate basketball team in USA history. By the end of the 2016-17 season, Tennessee who leads all NCAA DI schools, had 1252 wins, followed by Louisiana Tech with 1199 and Connecticut with 1118.^[10] Wayland had 1595.^{[11][12][13][14]}

The Wayland women's basketball team has also distinguished itself in the following ways:

Since the 1948-49 season, when Wayland began keeping official statistics on the Queens, the Wayland Team has had the following affiliations:

The Wayland women's team has had 13 coaches:^{[11][22][23][24]}

The women's team also has a rich history. Wayland's first women's basketball game was in 1910-11, the same year that Wayland opened for classes. Women played club sport basketball against high schools from the 1910-11 season through the 1947-48 season when the Wayland women's team played its first game against another college, beating Texas Tech. The Wayland Team played its first AAU competition in 1948-49, which is also when Wayland began keeping official game statistics. The Wayland Team played its first International Competition in 1949-50 against Mexico. Beginning with the 1950-51 season, the Wayland Team became the first women's basketball team to fly to all away games, as Claude and Wilda Hutcherson, owners of Hutcherson Flying Service, picked up sponsorship of the team and flew the team to away games in Hutcherson Flying Service planes. This tradition of flying resulted in the team being named the "Hutcherson Flying Queens".^[18][25] In the early 1950s, Wayland became the first 4-year collegiate program in history to provide 13 full scholarships annually to a women's collegiate team. [19, 20] The Wayland Team attracted 40 to 50 women to Plainview each year for tryouts.^[18][25]

The mascot for the women's team is the Flying Queens. The original team name was the Wayland Lassies, but in 1948, a local company, Harvest Queen Mill provided uniforms for the team, so they became the Harvest Queens.^[26] Before the 1950 season began, the team had a chance to play a game in Mexico City. A Wayland grad, Claude Hutcherson, was persuaded to fly the team to Mexico. Hutcherson became enamored with the team, and became a major sponsor, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the team.^[26] When Hutcherson Air Service became a full sponsor of the team, they began calling the team the Hutcherson Flying Queens.^[27] Hutcherson provided three sets of uniforms, plus traveling attire, and flew the team about 9000 miles a year to games.^[28] To this day, Hutcherson Air Service continues to provide travel for the women's road games.

Ironically, the strong support of Claude Hutcherson created problems for the school. Wayland considered dropping the team because the scholarships threatened their accreditation.^[29] In 1961, the Wayland board of trustees voted unanimously to eliminate women's basketball. The school had difficulty funding the academic programs. The accrediting organization, the Southern Association of Colleges, was not interested in AAU championships. No plans were made to eliminate the men's scholarships, only the women's scholarships.^[30] The local citizens did not accept the decision. Local businessmen, under the leadership of Claude Hutcherson, raised money to privately fund scholarships for a year. The trustees voted to reverse their position.^[31]

The team was coached from 1955-56 through 1972-73 by Harley Redin. Redin served in the Marine Air Corp in WWII, logging 50 combat missions over the South Pacific. After the war, he became the athletic director of Wayland Baptist, and the coach of the men's basketball team. The men's teams were very successful, making the NAIA postseason tournament three separate years.^[32] However, he became the coach of the women's team in 1955, and was even more successful—in 1954, under Coach Caddo Matthews, they began a winning streak that would stretch to 131 games, including four consecutive AAU national championships.^[33] The winning streak would eclipse a prior winning streak of 102 games, held by Hanes Hosiery, which ended in 1954.^[34] For 18 years under the coaching leadership of Redin, the team won 431 games against only 66 losses. The team won six national AAU championships, and finished second six other times.^[32] Redin went on to coach the USA Women's Pan American Team in 1959 and 1971.^[32] He was inducted into the inaugural class of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.^[35] In 2018, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame presented Coach Redin the Bunn Lifetime Achievement award.^[36] Outside of enshrinement, this award is the most prestigious presented by the Hall of Fame. Wayland Baptist teams from 1946 to 1982 were later announced to receive enshrinement on April 6, 2019.^[37]

The School of Mathematics and Sciences at Wayland Baptist University administers all mathematics and science courses taught on the Plainview campus and also those taught online. Degrees are offered in math, math education, biology, molecular biology, chemistry, and geology, along with several preprofessional service course areas such as prenursing and pre-engineering. Currently, the school has 15 faculty members; 6 math and 9 sciences, with three emeritus faculty.^[38] The School serves over 400 students each semester. On average, 20 to 30 students graduate with degrees from the school each year.

Initially, math and science courses were taught in several temporary locations on the WBU campus. Eventually, they, along with most other courses, were taught in Gates Hall, and later also in the library. The Division of Math and Science was formally designated in the 1940s. Science courses were moved to refurbished army barracks located on the north side of the campus in the 1960s. The Moody Science building was constructed in the early 1970s from a generous grant from the Moody Foundation. Several of the features in the new building were designed by faculty members. Since its completion, all Plainview campus math and science courses have been held there. In 2005, the university structure was reorganized, and the Division was redesignated as the School of Mathematics and Science.^[39] The School is housed in the Moody Science Building at 1900 W 7th Street, Plainview, TX 79072.

The Wayland Police Department is the primary law enforcement agency for the university. It was established in 2009 to further enhance the safety and security of the Wayland community.

All Wayland police officers have completed State of Texas-approved law enforcement academies and are fully certified and licensed as Texas Peace Officers under the provisions of the Texas Education Code, section 51.212, and are recognized as peace officers under Article 2.12 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.

The primary jurisdiction of a peace officer commissioned under this section includes all counties in which property is owned, leased, rented, or otherwise under the control of the institution of higher education. Wayland Police Officers have full police powers and authority to respond to police-related calls and other emergencies, investigate reported crimes, arrest individuals, and enforce all traffic laws.