# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1953_S136
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

136 SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

$20,000,000 in this area; it already has 278 buildings devoted%
this cause; it already salaries 285 persons devoting their full {
to this purpose. No other Protestant church body and no se
system of academic training has an identical or even a sj
situation.

It is readily apparent, therefore, that perfectly reasonable
tions of ministerial training problems under other circumsta
may not be adequate to meet the unique requirements of S:
situation.

Our Synod has the priceless opportunity to establish one y
equipped and staffed Senior College, to which she can bri
her ministerial students from the United States and Canada to:
them a final training period of uniform quality at a mature
in which they can rigidly and effectively examine their desir
enter our seminary for the study of theology.

The establishment of a single unit for this purpose appea
be the ideal method, also, by which the necessary homogeni
of academic background, local loyalties, and adolescent enthusii
of graduates from so many different preparatory schools
parts of North America can be achieved before these men
the seminary, thus leaving the professional-graduate school#
to devote itself entirely to its proper level and type of work:*%

Finally, this plan will give much more significance to se
studies, since some properly oriented courses in sociology, pitt
speaking, languages, psychology, education, religious art, eteig
more defensible in the undergraduate school and can often

taught there more effectively.

On the basis of current construction costs, the Board esti
that it would require approximately $4,200,000 to complete
plant of the Senior College. This sum would include provid
for purchasing land, furnishings, equipment, landscaping, '¥
architects’ fees in addition to the construction; but it would
include faculty housing, since it is assumed that such hot
would be built on the Building and Loan plan if Synod desir
furnish residences on campus as it has done prior to the’
convention. 3
; Recommendation

The Board for Higher Education has kept under contin
study and review the 18 plans for introducing a Senior Colle#
presented to the 1947 convention; it made available detailed 4
yses of the most promising suggestions for mutual study's
Synod’s Committee of 99; and it has carefully explored all s
tions conveyed by individuals or groups during the past trien#i]