LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 227

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HIGHER EDUCATION 227

5-64

To Provide Tuition-Free Education
to Children of Church Workers

WHEREAS, Jesus said, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the la-
borers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers into His harvest” (Matt. 9:37-38 NKJV); and

Wuereas, This condition still exists today; and

WHEREAS, Scripture continues, “Let the elders who rule well be
counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the
word and doctrine. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an
ox while it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer is worthy of his
wages’” (1 Tim. 5:17-18 NKJV); and

WHEREAS, Scripture continues, “Let him who is taught the word
share in all good things with him who teaches” (Gal. 6:6 NKJV);
and

WHEREAS, Many professional church workers, especially pas-
tors, have in the past acquired heavy debt loads to gain the educa-
tion required by The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod to be pre-
pared for their calling; and

Wuereas, This debt load often limits the financial assistance of
professional church workers to give adequate aid to enable their
dependent children to go to a Concordia College or to a Concordia
University; and

WHEREAS, Many congregations do not have the resources to
help a professional church worker send his dependent children to a
Concordia College or to a Concordia University; and

WHEREAS, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has an ex-
cellent post-secondary educational system; and

WHEREAS, Fringe benefits are a help in recruitment of profes-
sional church workers, therefore be it

Resolved, That The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod imple-
ment a study on the feasibility and implementation of having a
fringe benefit to all professional church workers of The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod that their dependent children would be
allowed to attend a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod Concordia
College or Concordia University tuition free.

St. John
Melcher, IA

5-65

To Foster Conformity in District Financial Aid

WHEREAS, The Concordia University System and the seminaries
have worked diligently to increase financial aid for students pur-
suing church-work careers through the implementation of guaran-
teed tuition aid and other similar programs; and

WHEREAS, Guarantee programs provide many students with
more financial aid than the traditional method of allocating aid; and

Wuereas, The Districts of the LCMS have historically provided
financial aid to students from their Districts pursuing chureh-work
careers; and

WHEREAS, The ability of the Synod’s universities and seminar-
ies to continue guaranteed aid programs depends to some extent on
Districts contributing funds toward the guarantee; and

WHEREAS, Some Districts have redirected their student finan-
cial aid to programs other than support of the guarantee programs;
and

WHEREAS, Reductions or nonparticipation in tuition assistance
by one District affects the entire guarantee program and may put a
student from one District at an advantage or disadvantage when
compared to a student from another District; therefore be it

Resolved, That the universities and seminaries be commended

for their guaranteed aid programs and other efforts to reduce the
cost of church-worker training; and be it further

Resolved, That the Districts be commended for their efforts to
easc the cost of education for students from their District; and be it
further

Resolved, That the Districts continue to be active participants
in partially funding the guarantee programs as well as seeking ad-
ditional funding for new avenues of student aid; and be it further

Resolved, That the Districts continue to recognize the impor-
tance of their aid in maintaining these guaranteed programs for the
overall good of the Synod; and be it finally

Resolved, That the universities and seminaries administering
these guaranteed tuition programs determine a minimum level of
expected District support each year, communicate that amount and
the details of how they administer their aid programs to the Dis-
tricts, and that the Districts make a good-faith effort to meet or ex-
ceed that minimum.

Board of Directors
North Dakota District

5-66
To Amend Bylaws re Tenure

Rationale

At its 1998 convention, the Synod adopted a resolution (Res. 5-
07) establishing a task force to study and make recommendations to
the 2001 convention relative to tenure at our colleges, universities
and seminaries. These are the recommendations of that task force.

There is a good deal of discussion today about tenure. This dis-
cussion tends to occur at two levels. The first is the general public,
where the major issues can be defined in terms of two questions.
The first is, “Why should tenured faculty, unlike other workers, be
guaranteed lifetime employment?” The second is, “Why aren’t
tenured faculty members subject to job performance reviews just
like other workers?” The second level of discussion is the legal
level. There have been a number of highly publicized lawsuits
brought by faculty because they were denied tenure, and given that
our culture is becoming increasingly litigious, the probability is that
such lawsuits will become more frequent.

Institutions have responded to this discussion about tenure by
tightening up the processes of screening, selecting, and granting
tenure and reviewing the work performance of faculty who have
been granted tenure. The key to the granting of tenure and the re-
view of the performance of tenured faculty is the nature of the
process used in assessing job performance and the possible conse-
quences of that assessment.

At the same time these changes have been occurring relative to
tenure, another movement has been gathering momentum, often in
the same institutions that have tenure. This is “contract hiring.”
Contract hiring can take many forms ranging from annual or even
one-semester appointments with no assurance of any renewal to
four- or five-year rollover contracts in which there are annual ex-
tensions of the rollover period. A contract system can provide fac-
ulty with more job security than a tenure system, depending on how
the two are structured.

At one extreme, the two approaches are quite different. At the
other, they show considerable overlap. Words that have such broad,
overlapping meanings can and do have the potential to create a
good deal of misunderstanding and unnecessary semantic bicker-
ing.

Recognizing this, the task force chose not to make its recom-
mendations in terms of supporting one or the other of these by
name. Rather, it decided to establish a set of guidelines that, in
combination with what is already in the synodical Handbook,
would create a system that combined the protection of faculty
rights emphasized in tenure systems with the increased account-
ability demanded by contract systems. The major difference in
what the task force is proposing is the mandating of more frequent
and formal performance reviews of faculty. The primary purpose of
these reviews is to help faculty not only see where they need to im-
prove their performance, but also see what they do well and think

2001 Convention Workbook