# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S158
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

1586 SEMINARIES. AND COLLEGES

sections, and the outstanding growth of the synodical Dist an
involved (1948 rank among North American Districts: Califo a
and Nevada 2, Southern California 3, Alberta and British Coly 3
bia 4, Northwest 5, Texas 13) make it unthinkable to recommen
any proposal to relinquish the tremendous advantages which belong
to Synod by virtue of its holdings which were acquired from 3%
70 years ago when the present tremendous developments could
only dimly foreseen. The U.S. Census Bureau recently repo
that Oregon is now the fastest growing State in the Union. In y
years the State’s population has increased 59.3% (to an estima;
1,736,000). California has gained 3,758,000 residents since 1940. Iti
now the second largest State in the Union. Texas is the y
rapidly expanding industrialization in the United States. In thes
light of these facts your Board simply cannot recommend either ;
contraction or elimination of Synod’s education projects in theg ‘
areas. This appears, on the contrary, to be the time to strengthen %
the Church’s holdings in educational property and programs pars#
ticularly in the areas mentioned, since in a special way thes}
colleges are in a position to function as: :
1, Focal points of Church leadership.
2. Prominent physical symbols of the Church in a growing area,:

3. Agencies for creating and sustaining group support con-
sciousness. fe
4. Centers of Christian education.

It is true that the same functions are performed, to a de :
by all the synodical schools. The emphasis here is on the roped
tion that such functions are a particularly important factor in these’
five schools. For these reasons, particularly, the school should dg
something special for the region, and the region should do somes!
thing special for the school. 3

On the basis of these fundamentally negative indications
appears that it would be both wrong to advise and. unrealistic
attempt any reorganization which proposes to solve this problest
through the creation of a consolidation which would give Synod
its needed capacity in a smaller number of larger schools (and thé
resultant economy of operation of the individual units), but whi :
is so expensive to convert from the current situation that 20 year
of operational savings would be required to recover the capita
investments demanded by the conversion and which would involv
the loss of five schools now strategically located in some of the mos
promising and rapidly developing regions of our Church and nation

For cost estimates on Plan A, see Exhibit 16, page 157. 5

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