Maranatha Baptist University

Maranatha Baptist University is a private Baptist university in Watertown, Wisconsin. History The institution was founded in 1968 as Maranatha Baptist Bible College by B. Myron Cedarholm. The college was named for the Aramaic phrase Maranatha, which means "Lo, He cometh" (I Corinthians 16:22). Cedarholm helped raise $150,000 to purchase the Watertown campus, now valued at $18 million, from the Brothers of the Holy Cross located in South Bend, Indiana. Maranatha Baptist Bible College opened just three months later, on September 10, 1968, with 173 students and 27 faculty members. Maranatha awarded degrees to the first graduating class, 13 students, on May 31, 1969. Maranatha was chartered by the State of Wisconsin in 1968 and accredited by the Higher Learning Commission in 1993. In 2013, the institution changed its name to Maranatha Baptist University. The current president is David Anderson, who began his duties during the summer of 2023. Since 2021, Matthew Davis has functioned as the university's CEO. At the end of the spring semester of 2023, former president Marty Marriott transitioned to the role of chancellor, only the second person to hold that title in Maranatha's history.