# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_2019_S181
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

9. STRUCTURE AND ADMINISTRATION
To Amend Various Bylaws
for Purposes of Clarification
RESOLUTION 9-01
Report R11 (CW, 94–95); Overture 9-41 (CW, 514–16)

Preamble
The Commission on Handbook, responding to a variety of
observations from officers, agencies, and members of the
Synod, has proposed corrections to bylaws that have given
opportunity to confusion or required repeated or nonobvious interpretation by the Commission on Constitutional Matters:
A. DEFINITION OF STAFF IN BYLAW 1.5.1.1
Rationale
The usage of the term staff in Bylaw 1.5.1.1 raises practical
questions about the extent of the bylaw’s prohibition of
board membership for staff of “other” agencies of the
Synod. The term is used variously throughout the bylaws.
In order to provide clarity here while avoiding unintended
implications elsewhere, a specific, limiting definition is
proposed.
Therefore be it
Resolved, That Bylaw 1.5.1.1 be amended as follows, to
clarify the definition of staff:
PRESENT/PROPOSED WORDING
1.5.1.1

Unless otherwise specified or permitted by the
Bylaws, chief executives and executive directors,
faculty, and all staff, and all other employees on
either the national or district level shall not be
members of the board of the agency under which
they serve, nor shall any such executives or staff be
members of the board of any other agency of the
Synod. For purposes of this bylaw only, staff shall
mean:
(a) Employees, other than faculty, rostered as ministers
of religion—ordained or ministers of religion—
commissioned, whether or not serving in such capacity;
or
(b) Employees of Corporate Synod or an agency of
Synod, other than faculty, who are responsible for the
development and/or implementation of policies, goals,
and programs; or
(c) Employees of Corporate Synod or an agency of the
Synod who assist chief executives, executive directors
and faculty in their work and are supervised by these
individuals directly or through a line of supervision.

B. CLARIFICATION OF FACULTY
IN BYLAWS 3.1.4.2 AND 3.10.6.7
Rationale
Questions regarding the extent of the term “faculty,”
whether used in the individual (“faculty member”) or
collective (“faculty as a decision-making body”) sense,
have occurred with regard to Bylaws 1.5.1.1 and 3.1.4.2,
whether part-time faculty are included (the historical sense
has been, for 1.5.1.1, yes, and for 3.1.4.2, no) and with regard
to Bylaw 3.10.6.6.2 (b)(4) (and therefore 3.10.5.6.2 [a])
whether it is used in the individual (any faculty member
can nominate) or collective (the faculty a whole presents
nominations) sense.
The bylaws include two definitions of the collective faculty
(one for a seminary and one for a college or university),
with one clarification/restriction related strictly to the
faculty’s role in qualification of candidates for first call

(Provisions like those of 3.10.5.7 (a)–(b) were removed from
Bylaw 3.10.6.7 in 2013, along with many other details of the
college/university section):
3.10.5.7 The faculty of each theological seminary of the
Synod shall consist of the president, the full-time faculty,
and the part-time faculty.
(a) Part-time or temporary faculty members are
distinguished by an appropriate prefix or suffix
(“visiting, guest, adjunct, emeritus”) or the term
“graduate assistant.”
(b) Part-time or temporary faculty members shall hold
nonvoting membership on the faculty.
…

Committee 9 Chairman Donald Fondow
Resolutions

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2019 (67TH) LCMS CONVENTION | 181