Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Page 284
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 284

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

254 HIGHER EDUCATION

forward-looking curriculum is designed to meet the
contemporary needs of the church and of the future
Lutheran minister, to give the student greater responsi-
bility and more freedom and flexibility in shaping his
education through the proper choice of electives and
area options, but also to retain the basic values inherent
in a century-long tradition of requiring and providing
a strong classical, liberal-arts foundation for profes-
sional studies in theology.

One significant change is the reduction in the num-
ber of courses which a student takes. Under the present
program of studies, students normally take five courses
per quarter; under the new program, students will be
required to take only four.

A unique feature of the new program is the intro-
duction of a 3-week interim term during which students
and faculty members will explore intensively a single
subject-matter area. Emphasis during the interim term
will be on interdisciplinary studies in which faculty
members from two or more divisions will cooperate in
leading class presentations. During the interim term it
will be possible also to carry forward academic studies
in off-campus locations if instructors structure their
course work for that purpose. Such team teaching and
interdepartmental arrangements will also play an im-
portant role in the regular-term instructional methods.

Under the new curriculum the traditional language
requirements will be reduced: students will be required
to complete the equivalent of only 2 years of college
work in either German or Latin in the total junior col-
lege-senior college program and to satisfy the require-
ments in the Biblical (Greek-Hebrew) languages.

By registering for honors work and for independent
study under the new plan, students will provide for
themselves an opportunity to explore in depth some
areas in which formal courses are not offered by the
college.

The potential stimulation which this forward-looking
plan will produce in the faculty members themselves
and in their students, but above all, in the future min-
isters of the Lutheran Church, extends far beyond the
importance of the content of the courses and the meth-
odology involved.

The Future

If the Synod accedes to those current proposals
which provide for the establishment of academically in-
dependent 4-year colleges, it must rethink and redefine
the form and function of this college, since the obvious
result would be an expensive duplication of the courses
and costs of ministerial education at a total of five lo-
cations. Such a decision to train all types of students
in a number of 4-year institutions involves not only a
renouncing of the basic educational philosophy which
motivated the establishment and support of a special-
ized ministerial school like Concordia Senior College to
provide the unique values, insights, commitment, and
dedication which must be essential outcomes of an edu-
cation which is designed to prepare the student for
effective service in the Lutheran ministry, but it also

moves the Synod away from the efficient concept of an
integrated and articulated “system” in which appropri-
ate contributions are assigned to individual schools
which have been designed and structured to contribute
into such a nationally distributed system that specialty
for which each school was equipped and staffed.

In the light of the current financial condition of the
Synod and in the light of the continuing rise in the cost
of all the necessary operations conducted by the church,
the duplication of effort and the increase of expense
which would attach to a “nonsystem” approach are
formidable and forbidding, to say the least; especially
at this particular time, when the cost of higher education
has currently become so fantastically high, that it is
a dire threat to the very existence of a high percentage
of long-established church-related, liberal arts colleges
and universities in America.

Other developments in the Synod and in its system
of ministerial education which in the judgment of this
board carry significant implications for the future wel-
fare of the Synod's entire junior college-senior college-
St. Louis seminary plan of ministerial education, as well
as for this school, include the increasing promotion of
alternate routes to the ministry; the pressure by some
existing institutions for prerogatives to unilaterally de-
termine their future development; the employment of
full-time staff to direct the development of the indi-
vidual institution and the promotion of nonsynodical
financial support; the increasing proportion of synodical
educational expenditures required for teacher training,
which now involves the three largest colleges operated
by the Synod. plus the majority of the college students
at all 10 junior colleges: the decline of seminary-trained
instructors in ratio to total faculty: the increasing inci-
dence of appointment of non-church-trained teaching
personnel to synodical faculties: the declining tenure
averages of faculty personnel (60 to 90 appointments
annually): and the student drift toward non-Missouri
Synod seminaries.

It seems to this board that some of the listed trends
and factors, and especially their further growth, deserve
the most thorough analysis, since any or all of them
are sure eventually to affect not only the Senior College
but also the essence of the educational philosophy and
the total synodical structure of ministerial education
which has proven itself to be a major asset through the
contribution it has made to the basic strength of our
church since its founding and to which the Synod is
currently committed through its enormous investment
in the manpower and physical assets it has struggled to
develop during the past one and one-quarter centuries.

Conclusion

This board’s experience with more than 2,000 min-
isterial students over the past 12 years leaves no doubt
with the board that the need for devoting the church’s
best resources in manpower and money to the difficult
task of providing the strongest spiritual and ecclesias-
tical environmental support for young men who come to
college to train for the ministry grows progressively