LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2023, Page 141

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OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS

141

• strengthen the confessional Lutheran identity of all CUS institutions;

achieve Christ’s ends lie with these regents (2019 Bylaw 3.10.6.4
[i][6]).

• review the composition, size, and selection of boards of regents;

With each institution facing unique and complex challenges and
opportunities, boards of regents, to respond with agility, must possess full “left-hand kingdom” authority and responsibility in business matters. As explained above, this is the current-day practical
reality and necessity, which state of affairs Synod’s bylaws must
clearly reflect. At the same time, the Synod must retain and take
concrete steps to strengthen its effective cooperation with the
boards of regents and school administrations, always striving to
sustain and advance the church’s “right-hand” mission. This means
change for what we now know as CUS, not to introduce or enhance
mechanisms by which it directs the universities or to involve it in
their kingdom of the left business decisions, but to focus and enhance the Synod’s effort in the guidance, encouragement, and provision of accountability for the schools’ accomplishment of their
churchly purpose.

• review the process for selecting presidents of institutions;
• review the overall governance of the CUS and the boards of
regents of CUS institutions; and
• review the financial models for the institutions.
At the same time, responding to the rationale for 2019 Res. 7-03,
to the collective desire expressed by the several boards of regents,
and to practical necessity, the following proposal aims, so far as an
appropriate governance structure can, to foster and facilitate the
coordination and collaboration that will help the institutions to succeed, individually and together—as schools strongly affiliated with
the church and her mission—in an increasingly challenging higher
education environment.
Each of the following eight sections (A–H) of the proposed governance plan (as well as any additional separate but related proposed
convention actions) is prefaced by a rationale section briefly relating the proposed changes to the above objectives. In response especially to the thrice-expressed (2013 Res. 5-01A; 2016 Res. 7-02B;
2019 Res. 7-03) desire of the convention for materially strengthened connections with the Synod’s colleges and universities, detailed bylaws provide an accountable, principally elected commission and concrete associated mechanisms for continued evaluation
and improvement where the Synod’s strength most lies and where
it most matters: confessional Lutheran identity and mission focus.
Further background material will be provided in the reports of the
Concordia University System and of the several colleges and universities in the 2023 Workbook.
A. TO REPLACE THE
CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY SYSTEM,
THE SYNODWIDE CORPORATE ENTITY,
WITH THE COMMISSION
FOR UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
Rationale
In keeping with the charge of 2019 Res. 7-03 to “review the overall governance of the Concordia University System (CUS) and the
boards of regents of the CUS institutions,” the primary mechanism
of the Synod’s relation to the schools is reconceived along the lines
of a “two-kingdom model.” To be clear, the intention is not at all to
divorce the business operation of the institutions or any so-called
“secular” aspects of their operations from their essentially religious
purpose and approach, but to be clear about who is responsible for
which aspects of the schools’ governance and in what manner. As
a Christian lives in two kingdoms but as one subject—entrusted at
once with material gifts and human relationships, on the one hand,
but also with the Word of God, on the other—so these two spheres
meet in the board of regents of a college or university, which will
continue to be composed of members of member congregations of
the Synod. These regents are entrusted with certain obligations and
duties, on the one hand, with regard to the worldly means and relationships of their particular institution, but at the same time—and
preeminently—to Christ and the Church, with regard to His Word
and their institution’s unique share of the Church’s mission (2019
Bylaws 3.10.6.1; 3.10.6.4 [i][1]). The final responsibility and authority, logically and legally, to marshal their institution’s means to

Mechanisms for what were always the chief aims of CUS must be
sustained and strengthened, namely, for setting forth a vision for
the schools’ role in the mission of the Synod, in pursuit of which
CUS has worked with them to establish Lutheran Identity Standards (2016 Res. 7-01A, Proc. 171) and to advocate the schools’
provision of church workers and preeminently and pervasively Lutheran higher education programs and campuses. Such purposes—
which are the Synod’s motivating objectives in connection with
the schools—do not require maintenance of a synodwide corporate entity with significant “left-hand kingdom” responsibility. The
schools and the Synod will benefit from the replacement of CUS
with the Commission for University Education (CUE; commission
as defined in Bylaw 1.2.1 [c]), a commission being suited to cultivate the mission-and-ministry connection of the schools with the
Synod’s congregations and other ministries, with the focus on advancing Lutheran identity and mission in curriculum and campus
culture and on effectively training church workers.
It will be the commission’s responsibility, aided by its staff, for
which corporate Synod will bear primary budgetary responsibility,
to help guide the colleges and universities in the way of faithful
service of and on behalf of the Synod’s congregations, and to hold
the boards of regents and presidents of the various colleges and universities accountable before the Synod for, in their governance and
administration of all aspects of college and university operations,
effectively assisting these institutions and all their parts along this
way as institutions of the Synod. For governing the comprehensive
business and legal affairs of the colleges and universities in the
way that best serves their fundamental purpose, (see proposed Bylaw 3.10.6.1 [a] under section F below) it is the boards of regents
that are ultimately responsible; for this the present proposal makes
them ultimately accountable, in a more structured, intentional, and
formative way through the work of the proposed CUE, to the congregations of the Synod.
Section C, below, elaborates the accreditation process by which,
chiefly, the commission will guide institutions in the way of expressing Lutheran identity in all spheres of university life and accomplishing the Synod’s mission outcomes, including bold confession (Const. Art. III 1–2), quality Christian education (Art. III 5),
and preparation of church workers (Art. III 3) and others (Articles
of Incorporation II d) for exemplary service in family, church, and
state. This accreditation process, while it adopts forms common
to the world of higher education, operates substantially within the
2023 Convention Workbook