Joseph Hyde
Southern Adventist University was honored to receive a 2025 Better Business Bureau Torch Award for Ethics, an accolade for organizations that lead with integrity. Chattanooga’s chapter of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) made presentations to winners in five categories on May 14, 2025, at the Chattanooga Convention Center. Winning for the local region in the category of 100+ employees, Southern earned a perfect score.
“Ethics and teaching our students positive Christian character traits are core to who we are, as an institution and as individuals, here at Southern,” says Ken Shaw, Ed.D., president of Southern. “This wouldn’t be possible without the dedication and wholehearted commitment of our faculty and staff. Our team is united in our mission because we have a collective goal that each is passionate about — transforming lives for eternity.”
The Torch Award for Ethics is based on how an institution demonstrates trust through the BBB’s four Cs of trust: character, culture, customers, and community. Nominees were invited to provide information demonstrating focus in each area, which was then evaluated and scored by a panel of judges.
Central to Southern’s mission is a commitment to teaching and modeling ethical practices, making the campus a robust Christlike environment where employees strive to support others, share God’s love through every interaction, and generously give back to the community.
Michele Mason, president of the Chattanooga BBB, wrote in an announcement following the award ceremony, “We honored organizations that don’t just talk the talk about ethics — they live it.”
Southern Adventist University | August 2025
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