# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1941_S112
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

110 Report of Board for Higher Education

tion. We wish to express our gratitude to Synod for the support
and encouragement it has given the work of the University through
this Board.

At the most recent plenary meeting of the Board, to which
representatives of Valparaiso University were kindly invited, we
were informed that the Board for Higher Education is recom-
mending to Synod that a complete survey be made of all of Synod’s
educational facilities and opportunities. The purpose of this survey,
we were informed at this meeting, would be to provide the data
necessary for planning a long-range program for the development
of secondary and higher education within our Church. With this
approach to our educational problems Valparaiso University is
in whole-hearted agreement.

Since Valparaiso University exists solely for the purpose of
serving the Church, and since we are eager to increase this service,
both qualitatively and quantitatively, we respectfully request Synod
to include in the proposed survey of the educational opportunities
of our Church the present and possible future service of Valparaiso
University. This section of the survey should include especially
the consideration of the more intensive use of the facilities of the
University in the service of Synod.

Many members of Synod, we have been informed, feel that
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, should be strictly a professional
school of theology. If Synod, therefore, through its Board for
Higher Education, would be inclined to consider any change in
the present arrangement, we should respectfully like to submit the
advantages of having our junior-college graduates take their re-
maining preprofessional years on the campus of Valparaiso
University.

We believe that an arrangement of this kind would be of
definite advantage to Synod for the following reasons: ,

1. Concordia Seminary would be able to resume its former
status as a professional school of theology.

2. The admission requirements of Concordia Seminary would
be raised.

3. Pretheological students would receive a bachelor’s degree
from a fully accredited institution.

4. Valparaiso University could offer a wider range of courses
to pretheological students. This would result in more varied
cultural backgrounds among our future pastors.

5. Pretheological students would spend a year or two among
students preparing for the various lay professions. These students
represent the future lay membership of our congregations. At Val-
paraiso our future pastors would become intimately acquainted
with the problems and attitudes of these students.