# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1956_S210
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

210 SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES

of Synod in 1950, the Commission and the Board for Higher Edu-
cation are held to report fully to the 1959 synodical convention
on the scope and content of this entire curricular development.

In March of this year, representatives of the Curriculum
Commission and representatives of the North Central Association
met in informal consultation for the purpose of reviewing the
tentative report of the Curriculum Commission. The synodical
representatives gained renewed assurance that the objectives as-
signed by the church to Concordia Senior College of contributing
toward training more effective servants of God for The Lutheran
Church — Missouri Synod are not incongruous with the achieve-
ment of regional accreditation from this powerful secular educa-
tional agency. While unofficial entirely, the conference was more
than satisfactory to the representatives of Synod’s Curriculum
Commission. The new institution was invited to apply for regional
accreditation when it is about to graduate its second class. The
very first graduating class already is to take the fourth college
year battery of examinations nationally recognized as the Graduate
Record Examination. Since the Board for Higher Education has
been administering these examinations at the corresponding level,
Synod may soon compare the academic outcomes achieved at
Concordia Senior College with norms that are based upon the
performance of many of the nation’s best students and with per-
formance of its own students in recent years. F urthermore, those
who rank high enough on this battery of examinations will have
readily recognized credentials of achievement, which will help
gain them admission to the most rigorous graduate schools until
such a time as Concordia Senior College has been regionally
accredited.

Thirty-six years and twelve synodical conventions ago, the
Detroit Synodical Convention first heard a floor committee report
favorably on the proposal to add senior college-level training to
the ministerial training program.

Twenty-four years ago the Milwaukee Convention referred
for study to Synod’s Committee on Higher Education a series of
overtures from the Fort Wayne Pastoral Conference, the Board
and faculty of the St.Louis Seminary, together with the Board
of Directors, calling for a senior college. Three years later the
1935 Cleveland Convention in the midst of prolonged depression
conditions found at least a temporary solution to the problem
of improving the ministerial training program by adding a pre-
theological year to the St. Louis program. After twenty-one years
with this “temporary” arrangement, the permanent solution, under
the gracious providence of God, is in sight.

The present target date for the opening of Concordia Senior

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