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LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1973, Page 244

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

244 HIGHER EDUCATION

Students from Minority Groups

The efforts to recruit more students from minority groups
unfortunately included more talk than success again during the
past biennium. The failure among the Spanish-speaking groups
was especially frustrating. The Board of Directors of the Synod
was unable to include in the budget the $75,000 for scholarships
for minority group students voted by the delegates at the Mil-
waukee convention. The lack of models for young people from
among black and Spanish-speaking pastors and teachers, due
to the past treatment of these workers as seen by the young,
continues to hurt recruitment. The competition for the gifted
students from racial and cultural minority groups has become
even more intense. Many whites feel unqualified to recruit
blacks. The limited number of black leaders we do have are so
much in demand for consulting, advising, teaching, speaking,
and traveling that they have limited opportunities for the
time-consuming, one to one contacts needed for recruiting. The
“ceiling” which continues to exist on the kinds of places to which
black workers actually receive calls hurts recruitment. The
changes in programs needed at the colleges and seminaries to
provide for minority group students are necessarily slow in
developing.

However, there are also some successes, joys and oppor-
tunities which should be reported. The four blacks who gradu-
ated from the Springfield seminary this spring set a new record
in the number of blacks graduating in one year from either
Springfield or Saint Louis. The M-TEPS program at St. Paul,

in which young people from minority neighborhoods in the
metropolitan area are trained as teachers to return to public
schools in those areas, has had many successes. The diaconate
program in Chicago has many problems, as anticipated, but has
provided valuable service to some predominantly black parishes
and has provided training opportunities for workers in those
parishes. Alabama Lutheran Academy at Selma has been
accredited and the faculty at that school has been strengthened
significantly. The Texas District, the seminaries, the Board
for Higher Education, and the Board for Missions are making
progress in their combined planning for more adequate semi-
nary experiences for future workers in Spanish-speaking com-
munities and for better procedures in recruiting Spanish-speak-
ing young people for our colleges. Concordia College of
Bronxville, N. Y., is taking major strides forward in efforts to
meet the great opportunities presented by a large enrollment
of minority group pupils in the Lutheran elementary schools of
the New York City area.

Recruitment Patterns

Two useful tables for evaluating recruitment successes and
patterns have been kept through the years. Both of these com-
pare total junior confirmands by years with the number of pro-
fessional workers who enroll as college freshmen at synodical
schools four years later. Table 3 gives the information by Dis-
tricts for the past biennium. Table 4 gives the Synodwide
recruitment level for the past 12 years.

TABLE 3

Junior Confirmands 1967 and 1968, and Freshman College Pastoral
and Teacher Enrollments, 1971 and 1972
(Analyzed According to Home Districts of Students)

Total Total Total
Total Freshman Freshman Freshman
Junior Pastoral Male Female
Confirm. Enroll. Teacher Teacher
District 1967 —68 1971-72 Ratio Rank 1971 —72 Ratio Rank 1971-72 Ratio Rank
Atlantic 7,133 42 1:170 6 24 1:297 17 71 1:100 12
Cal. and Nev. 4,027 6 1:671 29 10 1:403 21 12 1.336 30
Calif. So. 5,233 14 1:374 20 16 1:327 18 35 1:150 22
Colorado 2,406 22 1:109 1 16 1;150 7 28 1:86 8
Eastern 2,732 10 1:273 16 8 1:342 19 20 1:132 18.5
English 6,695 17 1:394 23 16 1:418 22 41 1:163 26
Fla.-Ga. 1,943 6 1:322 19 7 1:278 16 14 1:139 20
Tl. Cen. 2,691 5 1:538 28 13 1:207 12 29 1:93 10
Ill. North 8,633 35 1:247 13 63 1:137 5 138 1:63 1.5
Ill, South 1,691 2 1:845 31 10 1:169 10 21 1:81 5
Indiana 4,326 11 1:393 22 28 1:155 8 43 1:101 13
lowa East 2,032 2 1:1016 32 8 1:254 13 20 1:102 14
lowa West 3,003 8 1:375 21 11 1:273 15 28 1:107 15
Kansas 2,532 23 1:110 2 23 1:110 1 26 1:97 11
Michigan 10,716 36 1:298 18 5 1:143 6 124 1:82 6
Mid-South 760 4 1:190 8 1 1:760 27 5 1:152 24
Minn. North 3,458 5 1:692 30 9 1:384 20 11 1:314 29
Minn. South 6,037 21 1:287 17 32 1:189 11 73 1:85 7
Missouri 5,273 35 1:151 5 43 1:123 4 78 1:68 3
Montana 789 4 1:197 9 3 1:263 14 6 1:132 18.5
Nebraska! 4,755 12 1:396 24 40 1:119 3 1S 1:63 15
N. Dakota 1,261 3 1:420 25 1 1:1261 30 3 1:420 31
Northwest 4,056 27 1:150 4 8 1:507 24 29 1:140 21
Ohio 3,190 17 1:188 7 19 1:168 9 35 1:91 9
Oklahoma 899 2 1:450 26 1 1:899 29 5 1:180 27
S. Dakota 1,494 3 1:498 27 1 1:1494 = 32 12 1:125 17
Southeastern 2,878 13 1:221 11 6 1:480 23 14 1:206 28
Southern 1,777 7 1:254 14 1 1:1777 33 ll 1:162 25
Texas 4,056 17 1:239 12 7 1:579 26 34 1:119 16
Wisconsin N. 4,230 20 1:212 10 8 1:529 25 28 1:151 23
Wisconsin S. 6,408 48 1:134 3 56 1:114 2 82 1:78 4
Wyoming ? - - - - - - - - - -
SELC3 - 5 - - 1 - - 8 - -
A-B.C. 1,461 - 33.5 1 1:1461 31 - - 33.5
Man.-Sask. 971 - - 33.5 - - 34 - - 33.5
Ontario 1,564 6 1:261 15 2 1:782 28 1 1:1564 32
Total 121,110 488 1:248 568 1:213 1,160 1:104
Non-Mo. Synod
Lutherans 25 48 97
Total 513 616 1,257

' Combines Nebraska North and Nebraska South in 1967 + 1968 and Nebraska and Wyoming in 1971 ~ 1972

2 Included in Nebraska figures
3 No figures for 1967 and 1968 available