Q: Why would WWC wish to be perceived as university, when a college connotes personalized education?
A: One view of a university is of a place where impersonal undergraduate education is secondary to graduate programs and research. Conversely, colleges have traditionally been perceived to focus on the liberal arts, offering a more personal environment where professors, not graduate students, teach small classes. 

The liberal arts core and other strengths associated with a college will always define WWC. However, as the marketplace changes, WWC must consider how the traditional perceptions of colleges and universities are evolving.

While some universities are focused on research, there also exist a number of "teaching universities" similar to WWC, where students are taught in fairly small classes, by professors who often know them by name. The faculty in these teaching universities often give attention to interdisciplinary initiatives, recognizing the relationships between content areas and drawing their students into wholistic ways of learning. "Teaching university" best describes the approach valued by the faculty of WWC.

In the Adventist arena these views have been influenced as colleges that fit the traditional description of a college have become universities. Within the general public, lines are being blurred with information produced by sources such as the U.S.News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges" publication. This source classifies WWC as a Top Tier Regional School in the university category. Among the 63 schools listed in this category, 57 are universities and six are colleges.