A Foundation of Faith
Eastern Nazarene College was founded in 1900, in Saratoga Springs, NY, as the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute (PCI) and Bible Training School: a Christian academy, college, and seminary. The Institute operated under the auspices of the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America, an evangelical holiness denomination spread across the Eastern United States and Canada. From its incipience, however, attendance at PCI was multi-denominational, a fact which remains true to this day.

In 1902, the school moved to North Scituate, RI and functioned as an academy and Bible School. In 1907, the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America merged with the Church of the Nazarene, a Christian holiness denomination from the West Coast, to form a national, and later international, body of churches.

On Boston’s South Shore
In 1918, the school was chartered as Eastern Nazarene College, and saw the dream of a liberal arts college realized. In 1919, the college moved to its current location in Quincy, MA, on Boston’s South Shore. The property had been the summer home of Josiah Quincy, one of the six illustrious Josiah Quincys who had served as mayors of Boston and president of Harvard University. What is now Elm Avenue had served as the main avenue to the two Quincy mansions, which resided on an expansive 200-acres.

For years, Eastern Nazarene was known to local residents as “Quincy's College,” coined by the local newspaper The Patriot Ledger. It was two ENC history professors who first helped start what is now Quincy College, further solidifying Eastern Nazarene’s strong ties to higher education on Boston’s South Shore.

A Lasting Legacy
In 1981, Eastern Nazarene College began offering Master’s degrees and now operates a Graduate and Adult Studies Division for graduate work and continuing education. The College also maintains articulation agreements with smaller community colleges, just as it has developed cooperative programs with larger Boston universities for traditional undergraduates. In the late 1990s, ENC acquired land on Old Colony Avenue in Quincy, where the Old Colony campus is now located, including the James R. Cameron Center for History, Law, and Government, as well as the Cecil R. Paul Center for Business.

Eastern Nazarene College thrives today as a Christian college of the liberal arts, with over 100 years as an institution committed to academic excellence and Christ-centered faith. The College has had a 100 percent acceptance rate into law schools for over 25 years and maintains a 94 percent acceptance rate into medical schools, many of these major Boston-area institutions. ENC remains a place of both close Christian community and profound intellectual inquiry.