Whitman College is a private, co-educational, non-sectarian, residential undergraduate liberal arts college located in Walla Walla, Washington. Initially founded as a seminary by a territorial legislative charter in 1859, the school became a four year degree granting institution in 1883. Whitman College is accredited by the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges and competes athletically in the NCAA Division III Northwest Conference. The school offers 46 majors and 31 minors in the liberal arts and sciences. Whitman was the first college in the U.S. northwest to receive a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, and the first school in the United States to require comprehensive exams for graduation. Whitman was ranked 16th in the nation in Forbes' America's Best Colleges list. Whitman Seminary, the precursor to Whitman College, was chartered by the Washington Territorial Legislature in 1859 at the request of Cushing Eells as a memorial to Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, Christian missionaries who had died twelve years earlier in the Whitman Massacre at their mission site near present day Walla Walla, Washington.