# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1953_S982
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 177

it can have profound implications for the religious back-
‘professional insights, and spiritual quality of the grad-

ainly it brings into question the validity of a policy
tains a six-year preparatory plan. According to pres-
tes only 39.2 per cent of the students who go to the
s Seminary from the preparatory schools this year will
d the full six years of training in the preparatory system.
is not possible to fix a specific cause for this development.
little doubt, however, that the increased costs of today’s

creasing availability of Lutheran high schools in the Midwest,
of a large number of Synod’s students, and the simultaneous
ment of curricular requirements and promotion policies at
preparatory schools also create the possibility of later enroll-
¢ without the attachment of academic penalties as severe as
‘those formerly applied. Finally, the growth of Synod, involving,
‘gg'it does and should, increasing numbers of converts from broader
‘sectors of American life, brings to the Church a heavier emphasis
-on. the tradition that education for the professions begins at the
‘eollege level.

No doubt the establishment of the Senior College will alleviate
‘the negative aspects of this trend, since it will give the Church an
‘opportunity to control the academic curriculum and to train min-
isterial candidates in the professional and spiritual traditions of
the Church for four full college years. In the interim the Board
is making appropriate recommendations (in another section of this
report) to cover the excessive immediate demands which this trend
makes on the staff and physical plant of the St. Louis Seminary
and to preserve the experimental nature of the programs which
Synod has authorized at Fort Wayne and at Portland.

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II. Programs in Progress

Current Status of Senior College Project

Your Board is pleased to report that it has been able to carry
out its instructions regarding the Senior College according to the
schedule specified in Resolution 26, page 255 of the Proceedings
of the Forty-first Regular Convention of Synod (1950).

Accordingly, with the concurrence of the Board of Directors,
the Board for Higher Education has selected a site (maps on pp. 178,
179) for the Senior College and has ‘made the necessary arrange-
ments for its acquisition. On November 18, 1952, this Board placed
under option until August 1, 1953, a-126-acre site in the Cumber-
land-Mount Prospect area northwest of the city of Chicago. This
Site is located about 20 miles from the Chicago Loop; on two major