History
The Wilmette Institute was founded in 1995 to provide basic and advanced courses on the Bahá’í Faith. Its first four-year program, Spiritual Foundations for a Global Civilization, provided comprehensive and in-depth study of the Bahá’í Faith. Several months of on-line study supplemented the on-site summer residential sessions.
To provide educational classes to a broader student body, in 1998 the Wilmette Institute began providing on-line courses. It now offers more than 40 courses on the Web to an average of 20 students per course. Some 3,500 students, residing in at least 40 countries, have taken at least 1 course.