# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S290
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

290 HIGHER EDUCATION

a) offer the 4-year training for Lutheran elementary
teachers;

b) continue present training program for deaconess
and social workers: and possibly add programs
in other categories which might be developed by
the church, to the extent that these programs
become feasible;

c) retain the present 2-year program for pastoral
students, who will transfer to Concordia Senior
College.

B. To offer a 4-year college program in a limited
number of curricular areas to our young people who
are considering other careers. To this end the college
would offer a selected number of majors and would
not expect to enter areas where extensive technical
and specialized facilities and faculty are required.

A number of considerations, of various kinds, enter
into this request to change from a 2-year to a 4-year
college.

1. We do not have terminal education for teachers
of our elementary schools in the East. This imposes the
necessity of transfer to another campus at a distance
of about 1,000 miles, in another region of our country.
Students preparing for professional careers regard a
bisected college program involving transfer to a new
campus a major obstacle in their choice of a college.
The recruitment activities meet this hindrance year
after year and with great frequency. Pastors and teach-
ers persistently call attention to this obstacle which
meets them in their recruitment efforts. Studies of the
attitudes of students who have attended synodical 2-year
and 4-year colleges bear out this disadvantage of the
2-year college.

2. Training for profession in a 2-year college is not
generally found to be attractive to students nor well
received by educators. There is widespread nonaccep-
tance in the East of this type of college for the above-
indicated purpose. While the community college is pop-
ular and growing also in the Eastern States, these 2-year
institutions are generally regarded as a college for the
mass of students who have no well-defined educational
plans or for the academically unsure, or for those who
do not have plans for professional education. They are
commonly nonresidential and also less expensive. In
New York State’s most recent move to give financial
support to private independent colleges, the 2-year
college is completely excluded from all consideration
because of the great variety of its programs and its
objectives. The exclusion detracts from the status of
the 2-year college.

3. The program for the “general student” would be
conducted on the same general bases as in the past.
The benefits of a soundly Christian college education
would thus be offered to students preparing for other
fields of service than the full-time ministry. The addi-
tion of general students will provide a larger enroll-
ment and give to the college greater acceptability in the
eyes of both church-service and general students. A

larger faculty will provide more persons with specialized
training in various areas; the curriculum will offer
greater diversity; student activities will have greater
variety and strength.

4. The Bronxville Concordia has been an accredited
institution for more than 30 years and has accumulated
more than three decades of experience with the program
of “general education.”

5. The college is located in the center of a very large
population mass and a substantial percentage of Lu-
theran people. Included in the college’s service area
are the major parts of four synodical Districts. Within
a radius of 300 miles between nine and 10 percent of
the communicant, as well as general membership of
the Synod is found. The increase in the number of
members is impressive, being about three times the
growth in general population. A rather recent urban
development in the United States is the appearance of
“city belts.” The largest and most complex of these
is a continuous belt of urban development extending
through the Atlantic District and including parts of
the Eastern and Southeastern Districts, from north of
Boston to south of Washington. This belt contains
about 18 percent of the nation’s population, with New
York City and Bronxville in the approximate center.
In terms of general population, roughly two out of
five Americans come from the larger service area of
Bronxville.

6. The college continues to have the support of its
constituency for such a move. Memorials to recent
conventions from Districts, pastoral and teachers con-
ferences, and inquiries and comments from the field,
attest to this.

7. The college is moving toward the fulfillment of
the criteria which the Board for Higher Education
presented to the New York convention. A progress
report has been given to the Board for Higher Educa-
tion from which we select summarizing statements:

a. The criterion of discontinuing the prep school will
have been met completely by July 1, 1969.

b. In regard to classroom space, the very recent
study of the Campus Space Committee indicates
that with the addition of the prep school class-
rooms for college use and with a 75% utilization
of the classrooms there will be adequate general
classroom space for the projected enrollments
in the opening years of a 4-year college and a
need for no more than one additional laboratory
in biology.

c. Dormitory space will be increased. With the
availability of Bohm Hall, the prep dormitory for
housing college men, the present facilities for
housing would provide for 425 students at optimum
capacity and 500 at maximum capacity. Adding
15“ to these figures for day students, which is
the current ratio, the campus could provide for
490 students optimum and 575 maximum. En-
rollment in excess of that would require an addi-
tional residence.