LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1975, Page 271

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HIGHER EDUCATION 271

Dr. Martin F. Wessler. superintendent, Lutheran High School
Association of Greater Milwaukee. Milwaukee. Wis.: Mr. Albert
B. Wingfield, principal. Lutheran High School North, Detroit,
Mich.: Rev. George Wollenburg. President. Montana District.
pastor. Christ the King Church. Billings. Mont.: Mr. William R.
Wright. Education and Youth Counselor, Iowa District West.
Fort Dodge. Iowa: Dr. Edgar F. Ziegler. dentist. Chaska. Minn.:
and Mr. Norman Sell (advisory), Assistant Treasurer. The
Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod. St. Louis. Mo.

All of the materials from the questionnaire and the January
meeting were shared with the Task Force at its first meeting in
March 1974. As a further help to the Task Force. the Board for
Higher Education gathered and prepared materials relating to
each school in the system including self-studies, institutional
reports, catalogs, enrollment studies, financial aid data. recruit-
ment and attrition studies, recruitment and public relations
materials. and recent photographs of each campus. All system-
wide studies, as well as materials from the earlier evaluations
of the system, were also made available to the Task Force.

The New Orleans convention resolution indicated that the
Task Force was to operate as an independent group once it
had been appointed and had received all materials from the
meeting required by the first resolve. The Board for Higher
Education felt very strongly that such independence was
desirable and necessary. The board conscientiously avoided
any involvement with the work of the Task Force beyond
answering requests for information.

At the time of this writing the board has not as yet seen the
report nor recommendations of the Task Force. It is very
possible, and even likely. that the board will disagree with
some of the proposals by the Task Force. The board pledges
its full cooperation with the floor committee for the Anaheim
convention that will consider the recommendations from the
Task Force. The board plans to analyze the materials from the
Task Force when they are available and will give the floor com-
mittee a full report on the analyses of areas of agreement and
disagreement.

However, the Board for Higher Education wishes to state
clearly that it has been very favorably impressed by the ap-
proach used and the work done by the Task Force. as these
have been observed by the board. The members of the Task
Force approached their job conscientiously. gathered informa-
tion from every source available to them. gave opportunity to
all in the Synod who were interested to be heard. and. to the
extent possible, made firsthand visits to all the campuses. Any
disagreements the board might have with the recommendations
of the Task Force will not be related to any unhappiness with
the manner in which the Task Force did its work.

Differences in This Report

Because of the comprehensive assignment by the New
Orleans convention to the Task Force. the balance of this re-
port by the Board for Higher Education to the Anaheim con-
vention is of a different type from reports to earlier conventions.
The usual descriptions of the impact of higher education gen-
erally in the United States on the synodical system, the implica-
tions of enrollment studies. and the detailed financial analyses
all fit best at this time as preliminaries to the recommendations
by the Task Force.

By mutual agreement the major treatment of these areas
is included in the Task Force report. For this reason both the
report of the Task Force and that of the Board for Higher Edu-
cation need to be considered as one looks at the past 2 years and
the future of the system of colleges and seminaries. Some over-
lapping between the reports is inevitable since they are being
written independently during the same period of time.

Students

Almost anyone who visited one of the synodical campuses
and talked with the students during the past biennium would
certainly come away feeling that the future of the Synod is in
good hands in terms of its professional workers. Perhaps no
student generation has been warmer. friendlier. more mature,
or more given to evangelistic outreach and witness to Christian
growth and service than the students in the synodical schools
in 1975.

Like students generally in the country. those in our colleges
today are more job conscious, more conservative. more nos-

talgic. less noisy. and less inclined to demonstrate than their
older brothers and sisters of a few years ago. But they have
kept the “openness” of their predecessors and much of the
commitment to service. They've also kept the pattern of post-
poning specific vocationa! decisions into and even through the
college years.

Students entering the various ministerial programs at syn-
odical colleges continue to score above the national average
for entering students on tests of ability and achievement. They
come with high school grade averages well above the mean
for college-bound students. A very high percentage of the stu-
dents were leaders in their high schools and in their home
parishes.

All of this says we have reason to thank our Lord for His
great blessings through the students currently enrolling in our
schools. It also says that something very right is being done.
under God. by all those involved in the recruitment efforts in
the Synod. The students being recruited are of the quality and
have the dedication needed to be able to prepare adequately
for and to perform successfully in the wide range of professional
activities required of ministers of the church.

Quantity as the Problem

The problem of recruitment is rather in terms of quantity
—the total number of young people entering the various pro-
grams leading to professional service in the church. The sharp
drops in enrollment in the professional church worker programs
in our schools have received widespread publicity throughout
the Synod in the past biennium. This past fall one out of every
67 of the spring high school graduates in the Synod (873 out of
58.500) entered one of our colleges as a freshman pastoral or
teacher education student. Ten years ago one out of every 29
(1,611 out of 47.200) entered one of our schools.

The number of candidates eligible to enter full-time service
in the church as pastors or teachers will continue to drop in
the years immediately ahead. If the use of workers remains
constant, we will experience an increasing shortage.

The number of pastoral graduates available. at least for
the next 3 years, will continue to drop even if all students cur-
rently enrolled in Seminex can be regained for eligibility in
placement. A total of 150 first-year seminary students were
enrolled at St. Louis and Springfield this past fall compared
with a 5-year average of 272. If the first-vear students at Semi-
nex had chosen to remain in the system. the total would have
been 221, well below the average.

The earlier predictions of a sizable surplus of teacher edu-
cation graduates did not materialize. The largest classes in our
history graduated in recent years, and almost all of the “mobile”
candidates were placed. With teacher education graduates more
readily available in recent years, many of the congregations
seized the opportunity to secure workers for some of the new
and expanded ministries and to upgrade the professional
preparation of faculty members in Christian day schools. Far
fewer teacher education graduates will be available at least
for the next 3 years.

There are basically six major ways in which the production
of church workers can be significantly increased through syn-
odical school enrollments. These include enrolling more stu-
dents in the professional programs at the high school level, as
entering college freshman. as college junior transfers. or as
first-year seminary enrollees: having more general education
students in synodical schools change to a ministerial program:
or retaining more of the ministerial students who do enroll
at all levels.

High Schools

Only four. synodical high schools are presently being oper-
ated. Two of these are the special situations at Selma and Ed-
monton. The other two are at Portland and Concordia. Mo.
A total of 107 of the students in all four schools during the past
year classified themselves as pastoral or teacher education en-
rollees.

The number of professional students in our synodical high
schools will remain very small and is not likely to be the source
for a greatly increased future supply of workers. At the same
time. the Board for Higher Education continues to be aware
of the educational advantages possible in synodical high schools
and of their potential value in maintaining and strengthening
a young person's commitment to ministry. Some members of