# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1947_S186
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

184 SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

Adapting a Preparatory School

The suggestion that an existing school be closed and that the
physical plant be utilized as a two-year Senior College moved the
Board to survey the present Junior Colleges to determine the possi-
bility of adapting an existing physical plant to such a proposal.
It was assumed that there would be only one Senior College. All
existing Preparatory College facilities were considered and finally
eliminated because of geographical location in relation to synodical
constituency, except Fort Wayne, Milwaukee, and St. Paul.

Your Board felt that a detailed study of the problems involved
in locating the Senior College at any one of these locations would
suffice for Synod’s purposes, since there would necessarily be
a great similarity in the broad patterns of the relevant basic ad-
vantages and problems. It is recognized that the geographical
location of the city is somewhat remote from the general Lutheran
centers of education in the case of St. Paul, and that at Fort Wayne
the existence of the Lutheran High School development on the
campus would be a factor in the reaction of the local Lutheran
community. But these special considerations would not in them-
selves constitute insurmountable barriers if it were found other-
wise desirable to establish the Senior College at one of these
locations.

For its present purposes, to illustrate the practical aspects of
any such proposal, your Board chose to apply the relevant criteria
to the Milwaukee campus.

The disadvantages here are mainly of an external character,
but still important in relation to the location of a Senior College
as a new venture.

If no Junior College were at this location within the city of
Milwaukee, there can be no doubt that the present site would not
be selected. The campus is small and the acquisition of additional
land would involve very substantial expenditures.

The College is located in an area of the city which has for
some time past ceased to be an attractive residential district. While
the neighborhood surrounding the College is not yet basically
undesirable and cannot be classified as a blighted area, as this
condition applies to American cities, it is only a matter of time
until it will be a neighborhood of more or less transient people.
Presently there are no pronounced tendencies apparent to arrest
deterioration, although the process appears to be slow.

It should also be borne in mind, that if it were to use this
school, Synod would lose one of the remaining Junior Colleges
which are devoting themselves almost exclusively to the training
of ministerial students.