Linfield College is an American private institution of higher learning located in McMinnville, Oregon, United States. As a four-year, undergraduate, liberal arts and sciences college with a campus in Portland, Oregon, it also has an adult degree program located in eight communities throughout the state. Linfield Wildcats athletics participates in the NCAA Division III Northwest Conference. There are a combined 2,100 students at Linfield, which employs over 110 full-time professors at the 195-acre (790,000 m) campus. Linfield traces its history back to 1849 when the Oregon Baptist Educational Society was created in Oregon City. That group organized in order to start a Baptist school in the region. In 1855, Sebastian C. Adams started to teach classes in McMinnville, and in 1857 the Baptist group purchased Adams' land in order to start their school. The Baptist College at McMinnville was chartered in 1858 by the Oregon Territorial Legislature, and later became McMinnville College before acquiring its current name. In 1922, the name was changed to Linfield College in memory of a Baptist minister, the Rev.