# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S71
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 69

The Summer School, off-campus Extension Centers, and local
Extension service are carried on by Concordia Teachers College
without cost to Synod as is also the growing Correspondence Divi-
sion, The teaching and administration of these services. are ab-
sorbed by the College staff in addition to regular full class assign-
ments, and though they are a heavy drain on the over-all faculty
strength, the response from the field is so genuinely appreciative
that the faculty has been willing to carry the ever-increasing
burden since 1932. The cumulative effect of the Summer School
and Extension work done by our two teachers colleges on the
educational preparation and encouragement of our teachers in
service can only be estimated.

Teacher Shortage and Emergency Measures Taken to Meet It
The accelerated Summer Quarter of eleven weeks inaugurated
in the College Department in the summer of 1943 was carried
through in 1944 and 1945, In this way most of the College men
and some of the College women gained a whole year of educational
advancement. However, the net gain in graduates was compara-
tively small, since so many of these students did a year of supply
teaching, thus postponing their graduation. After three years of
acceleration it was generally felt by students and faculty and
synodical boards alike that enforced year-round college work raised
as many problems as it answered, and the practice was discontinued
as a requirement in the summer of 1946. Many regular students
have voluntarily continued to use the Summer Session or the
Extension service as a means of speeding up their graduation.
Another measure used to alleviate the teacher shortage is the

partial training of emergency teachers during the six weeks’.

Summer Session. For the past three years we have been supply-
ing young people who have been engaged to teach in Lutheran
schools with practical workshop courses to help them get started
in the teaching field. The enrollment of such in the Summer
Session has been as follows:

1944. 18 1945... 62 1946... 59

It is not reasonable to expect that one or two summers of training,
no matter how well done, will produce the kind of teachers which
our average school needs, but the practice of emergency training
will have to be continued as long as the extreme shortage lasts.

Fortunately, some of the emergency teachers have been returning’

in successive summers, and a number of them have entered the

regular teacher-training program during the school year.
Another practice which has been very effective and will pro-

duce lasting results in intelligent interest in the Christian day school