LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2023, Page 170

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7. UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
thereafter, the second closure of debate called under Rule 22 was
carried. With closure of debate being carried also on the
resolution, the resolution was adopted [Yes: 716; No:283].
The body granted the right, under Standing Rule 29, for votes to
be recorded in the minutes, which are as follow:
Yes:
Lay Delegates: Jonathan Baisch (SELC); Keith D’Atrio (MDS);
Darik Day (NE); Harry Edmon (NOW); Paul Edmon (NE);
Delmar Ehlers (MNS); Paul Gehlbach (MNS); Stephen
Hernandez (TX); Matthew Laine (OH); Robert Lustrea (NI);
Joshua Mize (SE); Caleb Smith (IN); Steven Timmerman (SD);
Philip Viges (MI);
Pastoral Delegates: Christopher Antonetti (NI); Emmett
Bartens (NI); Eric Bednash (SE); Anthony Bertram (MNS);
Christopher Brademeyer (ND); Christopher Burger (SE);
Joshua Conradt (SW); Theodore Cook Sr. (KS); Jesse Davis
(SW); Mark De Young (TX); K. C. Dehning (IN); Phillip
Fischaber (NI); Marshal Frisque (SW); Aaron Hambleton (IE);
Peter Haugen (MNS); Andrew Herzberg (CI); Jonathan Hodges
(NJ); Christopher Horton (MNS); Philip Houser (MNN); Kevin
Johnson (IW); Andrew Kennell (MO); David Knefelkamp
(NW); Nathaniel Konkel (MNN); John Koopman (IW); Alan
Kornacki (SI); Mark Kranz (MO); Ralph Laufer (SI); Joshua
Leigeber (MDS); Gary Markworth (NW), Adam Matheny
(MNS); Adam McDowell (IN); Seth Mierow (IN); Matthew
Moss (MNS), M. Joshua Osbun (IN); Daniel Redhage (IE);
Daniel Ross (OK); Evan Scamman (NE); Michael Schmidt
(KS); Michael Schuermann (CI); Christian Schultz (KS);
Benjamin Siebert (NEB); Brad Thomas (NW); David
Vandercook (MDS); Robert Wacker (OH); David Walsh
(MNN); Jody Walter (NNW); Donald Welmer (MDS); Adam
Welton (SD); Philip Zielinski (OH);
No:
Pastoral Delegates: John Davis (TX); Alex Hoffmeyer (MI);
Derek Klemm (PSW); Joshua Knippa (TX).

To Revise Bylaws to Revisit and Renew
Relationship of Colleges and Universities
with the Synod
RESOLUTION 7-04B
Overtures 7-01–09 (CW, 349–55); Report LR69 (TB, 1:40–47);
Overture L7-27 (TB, 1:52–75); Resolution 7-04A (TB, 2B:310–
35)
Preamble
The following proposed convention action, having to do with
the Concordia University System (CUS), represents the
culmination of the collaborative process set forth by 2019
Resolution 7-03 (“To Direct a Collaborative Process to Propose
a New Governance Plan”) to propose a new governance plan
for CUS that (as the resolution directed) strengthens all CUS
institutions’ connection to the Synod; strengthens their
170 | PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2023 (68TH) LCMS CONVENTION

confessional Lutheran identity; and reflects intensive and
extensive review of the composition, size, and selection of
their boards of regents, the process of selecting their
presidents, the overall governance of the system by the CUS
and the boards, and the financial model for the institutions.
This proposal aims to respond effectively—with realism,
faithfulness, and hopefulness—to decades of higher
education change. What were once colleges devoted almost
exclusively to the training of sons and daughters of Synod
congregations for church work have—through a process that
began as early as 1947, with the development of the “senior
college” concept, and that accelerated with each subsequent
decade—completely transitioned to four-year, regional
universities, reliant on sources outside the Synod for the vast
majority of their material operating inputs. A few details are
important:
• The colleges once served a “captive Synod audience” of
traditional, residential undergraduate students
studying in a limited number of academic programs on
campuses oriented principally or exclusively toward
church work or final pastoral formation at seminary.
Today, the universities offer, to a confessionally diverse
student population, dozens of competitive online and
on-ground undergraduate and masters, doctoral, and
professional degrees and programs in a wide variety of
disciplines including health care, engineering,
education, criminal justice, etc.
• Across the board today, church work (4 percent) and
member-congregation students (11 percent) are a small
minority on each campus, and tuition and fees
(especially from profitable, largely graduate, almost
exclusively non–church work programs), grants, and
gifts from the faithful, from alumni, and from
surrounding communities have replaced a Synod
subsidy as principal financial means. Only
approximately 5–6 percent of graduates of Synod
congregations attend a Concordia university.
• With the size of the schools’ operating budgets, their
principal reliance on non-Synod sources of income,
their responsibility to those providing those inputs
(including the federal government and students
seeking degrees in non–church work programs), their
expanding but variously structured endowments, and
their potential liabilities vastly outweighing the value
of the schools’ properties, necessitate that any
sweeping rearrangement of the CUS be far more
complex than a simple application of present Synod
bylaw mechanisms (e.g., Bylaw 3.6.6.4) or a simple
convention action.
• It is no longer practical to contemplate empowering any
single Synod board to coordinate the business and
financial operations of the universities as they presently
exist and operate as a unitary whole. Even the few
existing layers of authorization in left-hand kingdom
matters (e.g., administration, finance, real estate,
budget, information technology) have engendered
uncertainty regarding the relative roles of CUS, the
Resolutions