# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1953_S987
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

186 SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

listed above and the Senior College completion funds are o:
first priority in the chart listing your Board's recommendatj
with regard to current requests from the colleges and Seminaries
under the provisions of Handbook Section 6.147,

The Board recommends that other requests under 6.147 be
serviced in the following order:

1. Buildings and equipment for the seminaries;

2. Increases in capacity and/or equipment for training women
teachers;

3. Requirements for preserving, modernizing, and fully utili:
ing existing facilities;

4. Required physical education facilities,

In addition, the Board lists items which, in its opinion, can
and should be completed during the coming triennium with budget
funds; items which have customarily been built on the “Build
and Loan” plan, and items which, in your Board's. opinion, Synod
can properly consider deferring or declining at this time.

To defray the costs of the uncompleted projects approved at
Milwaukee and any additional projects approved by this conven-
tion, the Board

Recommends that 65% of all “Conquest for Christ” funds over
$12,000,000 be appropriated for this purpose and, unless the con-
vention provides other means of financing capital improvements
and additions, that a minimum of $500,000 annually be included in
the regular budget for ministerial and teacher training.

If Synod wishes to undertake the increased training program
to relieve the critical shortage of women teachers and to assure

itself that ministerial graduates from preparatory schools can be
accommodated in the Senior College or in the St. Louis Seminary,
it will be necessary to authorize the Board for Higher Education
to deal with emergencies and the Board of Directors to furnish
borrowed, or other, funds as required.

The details of your Board’s recommendations on requests con-
veyed under Handbook Section 6.147 are exhibited in the tabula-
tions on pages 132 and 133 of Reports and Memorials (the sequence

- of the columns indicates present recommendations on priorities) ;
and the Board :

‘Recommends, finally, that Synod authorize the Board for
Higher Education to make any: necessary priority and allocation
adjustments which other resolutions of this convention or develop-
ments during the triennium may make necessary or desirable.

. ACTION

Concerning the recommendations of the Board for Higher
Education at the end of this section, Committee 1 submitted the
following resolution, which was adopted: —

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 187

Resolution 43

WueEreas, It is impossible for this Convention to determine with

te finality the priority that shall govern the construction of
a ailding projects it approves; and

EREAS, at conditions may arise which could not

we i ted te eet desisable to have an element of flexibility

be vind out the approved building program; therefore be it

in lved, That Synod authorize and encourage the Board of

pireeton to empower the Board for Higher Education to make any

i eet priority and allocation adjustment which other resolu-
nec

«1< of this convention or developments during the triennium may
make necessary or desirable.

IV. Recommendations on Policies and Plans
The Senior College

i ibility of each generation in our Church to

* i oe lute the plans and procedures in ministerial train-
study order to ascertain if they are adequately preparing our min-
ne sf ‘ their task today. In this connection it is of the utmost
mae a e that our Church (in 1947 and again in 1950) has
La yized the fact that the educational picture in America has
what d entirely from that found even as recently as 1924 and
ooo when extensive studies were made of theological education
in several national surveys sponsored by other caer. ;

The practical effects of these studies are exhibited in i e cur
rent enrollment policies of accredited seminaries. In - only
16 theological schools set college graduation for admission; * more
required college graduation but allowed for exceptions. e.
ance of the schools admitted students without insistence upon
college training. In 1930 about one half of all students enro ed
in the theological schools did not have college degrees. pai
accredited theological schools expect their students to have pis e
four years of undergraduate work. Thus, within a period of years
theological education has moved to where a college degree for
admission is peremptory at all accredited seminaries.

Of equal importance is the generally recognized need for a
closer connection between the last two years of college and the
program of theological education. Dr. John Gros, Executive Sec
retary of the Division of Educational Institutions, the Board o
Education, Methodist Church, gives excellent expression to this
need when he writes in a recent issue of Christian Education:
“There are some important: courses in the senior college which
call for a degree of maturity not reached by the undergraduate.
And, increasingly, courses are added to the theological school cur-
riculum which do not challenge the mature. Theological schools