Palm Beach Atlantic University
Christian university in West Palm Beach, Florida
Palm Beach Atlantic University (PBA) is a private nondenominational Christian university in West Palm Beach, Florida. PBA's nine colleges focus on the liberal arts with a select collection of professional studies. In 2024, PBA's undergraduate enrollment was approximately 2,600.
Founded in 1968, PBA grew out of a local Baptist church. PBA is now a nondenominational institution. PBA operated out of assorted buildings until the first purpose-built PBA campus building was completed in 1982. A subsidiary PBA campus operates in Orlando. Eighteen sports teams represent PBA in NCAA Division II competitions.
History
PBA was the vision of and was founded by Jess C. Moody in 1968 while he was the pastor of First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach. He served at PBA until the first PBA class graduated in 1972 and resigned as PBA president to focus on his duties at First Baptist Church.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Palm Beach Atlantic University” is christian university in West Palm Beach, Florida. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Palm, Beach and Atlantic, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “christian university in West Palm Beach, Florida” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7127976. VIAF identifies the subject as 159592774. The Library of Congress control number is n93020839. Authority coordinates are 26.704, -80.051. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2024, 1968, 1982 and 1972.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Palm Beach Atlantic University”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Palm Beach Atlantic University primary sources, Palm Beach Atlantic University archive and Palm research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Palm Beach Atlantic University”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Palm Beach Atlantic University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.