# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S76
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

74 SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

institution. Five years ago we had 165 college students and 199
high school students in attendance, a total of 364. The enrollment
in 1946—47 reached a record of 279 college students and 191 high
school students, a total of 470. Each year we have been forced
to turn down increasing numbers of qualified applicants in both
high school and college at the very time when the field was
growing more and more desperate in its need for synodically
trained teachers.

The sharply increasing enrollment has made a larger teaching
staff necessary. Since only Synod can create professorships, we
appointed additional temporary instructors, with the approval of
Synod’s Board for Higher Education and Board of Directors. These
instructors have taught largely in the high school department, with
the result that during the past year over half of our high school
classes and even some of the basic courses in the college have
been taught by teachers whose tenure of office was insecure and
who in some cases lacked both specific training and experience for
their assignments.

The above condition was aggravated this past year and will
be again next school year by a further reduction of the high school
enrollment to make room for a larger proportion of college students.
College classes require a higher faculty-student ratio, that is, more
instructors for the same number of students. College classes, and
especially the advanced senior college courses in all fields, require
a much more highly trained and experienced staff, men who are
not too readily available in Synod and who in most cases cannot
be secured on a temporary basis at a comparatively low salary.

As the needs have grown and the standards have risen, it has
been found necessary to use more and more of the time of some
of our permanently called professors in administrative work. These
men have had to sacrifice some of their teaching privileges in order
to carry the added responsibilities of student admission and regis-
tration four times each year, program making, educational guidance
and personnel counseling, supervision of student teachers, place-
ment of supply teachers and graduates as these become available

.during the year, administration of summer sessions, correspondence
work, extension centers, and other necessary academic and admin-
istrative functions. This year-round activity has made great in-
roads into our teaching manpower. It has also laid a very heavy
strain upon those charged with administrative duties without
sufficient relief from teaching.

Higher standards in teacher education and insistent demands
upon our graduates for various types of service in our congrega-
tions necessitate a broadening of the curriculum to meet these
requirements. This can be contemplated only if more men with
adequate training and permanent tenure are added to our staff.