Seabury-Western Charts a Course for Radical Restructuring

Traditional Master of Dinivity Program Ended

by David Skidmore
Diocese of Chicago
February 24, 2008

Seabury-Western Theological Seminary will be charting a new course for theological education as it responds to the economic challenges facing Episcopal seminaries and the changing circumstances of congregationally based ordained ministry.

In a February 20 letter to Episcopal bishops with seminarians enrolled at Seabury-Western in Evanston, Il., seminary dean the Very Rev. Gary Hall said the executive committee of the seminary's board had approved a planning committee's recommendations to end the three-year residential Master of Divinity program, and suspend recruitment and admissions to all of the seminary's degree and certificate programs. The seminary's popular Doctor of Ministry program in congregational development and the Doctor of Ministry in Preaching offered jointly with other ACTS schools, will continue with the present enrollment through the completion of degrees, but will not accept new students for the time being.

The Executive Committee, stressed Dean Hall, does not intend to eliminate the Master of Divinity program, only the three-year residential model currently in use. The possibility of offering the Master of Divinity in other formats will be explored over the next two months leading up to a special meeting of the seminary board of trustees in late April, said Hall.

A major factor in the board's decision is the seminary's deficit budget, projected to run a $500,000 shortfall for the current fiscal year. Expenditures are projected to run $2.9 million. A significant debt load of $3 million also weighed heavily in the board's direction to the dean to come up with a financial plan that brings expenses into line with revenue. At the board's regular meeting February 15, the board directed the dean to draft a plan for Seabury's future operations, including a proposal for balancing the budget and recommendations on continuing, altering or ending current programs.

"We have come to the realization that we cannot continue to operate as we have done in the past and that there is both loss and good news in that," said Hall in his letter. The church does not need Seabury-Western in its present form, one focused on a three-year residential Master of Divinity, since other seminaries are providing that already, he said. What the church does need, said Hall, is a seminary "animated by and organized around a new vision of theological education - one that is centered in a vision of baptism and its implications for the whole church." This new education model is one that is "flexible, adaptive, and collaborative in nature."

Seminary is not closing
Both Hall and board chair Salme Steinberg stressed that this announcement is not a requiem on Seabury's mission or existence.

"I have no doubt that Seabury will flourish in the future," said Steinberg. "There is a tremendous opportunity for us to take hold of and move forward into the future." That is also the sense of Bishop Jeffrey Lee of Seabury-Western's host diocese, Chicago. "The seminary is not closing its doors. It is engaging in a radical reassessment of what shape its mission has to take in this time," he said.

Bishop Lee, who consecrated Bishop of Chicago February 2 and is new to the seminary's board, said he would be working with Chicago's Commission on Ordained Ministry, people in the discernment process in Chicago, and other Episcopal seminaries to envision "how we best form people and then deploy them most effectively for the church's life as it exists right now, right here in the Diocese of Chicago."

Bishop Lee has offered Dean Hall and Seabury's faculty and students "all the resources at my disposal for pastoral care in this time of transition.' The board's action, he said, was appropriate given the nature of the challenges it faces. "It is acting in the best sense of its fiduciary trust,' he said, 'making very hard decisions that I have seen a lot of boards refuse to make."

No longer business as usual
One of 11 Episcopal seminaries, Seabury-Western is not a stranger to change, since it is the product of the merger of two divinity schools in 1933: Seabury Divinity School in Fairbault, Minn. and Western Theological School in Chicago. This May it will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of Seabury Divinity, a celebration which will be as much about the future as the past.

Though the challenges are daunting, Hall is convinced that Seabury-Western will continue to form lay and ordained leaders for the church. The seminary is not closing, but changing its approach to theological education, he said in an interview after the announcement. "We are on the verge of big change in theological education, and it is clear to every single accredited seminary that we can't continue doing business as usual."

His assessment is also shared by Bishop Lee. "The Episcopal Church cannot sustain 11 freestanding, degree-making seminaries in the way we have traditionally done that. The deans have been clear in pointing that out to us," said Lee who emphasize he is not opposed to seminaries offering three-year residential Master of Divinity programs. "I think we will continue to need those, but we don't need 11 separate institutions trying to do that."

His hope for Seabury is that it take the lead in adapting to the needs of today's church for theologically trained leaders, not the church of 30 or 40 years ago. Expecting students or their financially strapped congregations or dioceses to pay annual tuition that exceeds $12,000 is no longer realistic. "The realities of relying on MDiv candidates to pay for all of that is over. It is too expensive and does not fit the lived reality of the call to ordination in the church today."

In Seabury-Western's case, the financial pressures are forcing the board to confront the reality of a model that can no longer work successfully given the economics of education at the post graduate level, and the changing circumstances of prospective students and the nature of ministry in Episcopal congregations, said Hall. This challenge is an opportunity for the Seabury community "to be the leaders in thinking through what theological education is going to look like over the next 50 years," he said.

Seabury-Western is first to make radical shift
The picture envisioned by Hall and other deans is a montage of distance learning, strategic partnerships with other seminaries, some level of residential study, house of study centers, work-study arrangements, and short courses and seminars. Some of these are in process now but no Episcopal seminary has made or is contemplating the radical shift that Seabury-Western is undertaking, said the Rev. Elizabeth Butler, vice president of advancement and administration at Seabury-Western.

The seminary has been engaged in revisioning its mission over the past year and a half and that process has helped prepare the board for the radical shift it now is making, she said. What has been missing from the picture is the financial stability to move the vision from the drawing board into implementation.

"We have known for a long time that the financial model was unsustainable," said Hall, noting the board took steps to address it through cutting costs, and an initial quiet phase of a capital campaign over the past six months that has raised $2.3 million toward an $18 million estimate of needs. Half of the funds needed are to go to program and debt reduction, and half to capital improvements. Their hope was to raise enough to continue the current format centered around a residential Master of Divinity, with the same staff and faculty.

Of the $2.3 million pledged so far, $1.9 million is restricted gifts for capital improvements. The board intends to continue the campaign, but also understands "the money isn't going to solve those long-term structural problems," said Hall.

Business as usual is no longer an option for Seabury-Western, and soon may prove unviable for other Episcopal seminaries. "We have more openings in three-year residential seminaries than we have people going to those," said Butler. "Many people are choosing to be formed in other ways. And we believe there is an important niche we can fulfill by bringing high quality theological education together with a diverse way of delivering that, so that it is going to forge a new way for seminaries to be, a new way for the church to form its leaders."

Ties to Seabury run deep
The planning committee will be meeting weekly over the next two months leading up to the special board meeting to explore options for bringing the financial picture into balance, and ways to provide theological education that meet the needs of congregations and dioceses, and the students. Any changes to faculty and staff positions, curriculum and program will be on hold until the board hears and acts on the planning committee recommendations at its April meeting.

For now the concern is the welfare of students, faculty and staff. The community was informed on Wednesday of the Executive Committee's decision, and students and faculty met with the senior staff that night to discuss their concerns.

The reaction is one of loss, grief and shock, some anger, and "a surprising amount of support for arriving at a difficult decision," said Hall. The emotional ties to the seminary run deep. "People love this place and they don't want this place in its current form to disappear."

The board acted now rather than wait so that there would be resources not only to plan for the future but to work "justly and pastorally with the students, faculty and staff who will be affected," added Hall. For students currently enrolled this means helping them find other schools to continue their education, whether it be another Episcopal seminary or one of the 11 seminaries and schools in the Association of Chicago Theological Schools. Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, across the street from Seabury-Western on the Northwestern University campus, is a likely landing point given its long partnership with Seabury-Western and joint operation of the seminaries' United Library.

For students who might be considering Seabury-Western, Butler said for some it might be appropriate to look at other seminaries or schools. For others, they might want to wait "to see where we emerge and see how that might fit even better with their plans."

Though no decisions have been made on staff and faculty positions, there will likely be changes when the new fiscal year begins June 30, said Butler. Currently, Seabury-Western has ten faculty, not including the dean and United Library director; and 30 staff. In addition, there are 11 adjunct faculty, half of whom are parish clergy. Current enrollment stands at 109, 48 of whom are enrolled in a nine month program for Master of Divinity, Master of Theological Studies, Master of Arts, or a certificate program.

"We are facing something that all of our sister institutions are facing," said Hall. "We are just a step ahead of them in our financial realities. So our willingness to do this I think shows there is a consensus on the board that Seabury wants to be out ahead of the change."

David Skidmore is Canon for Communications for the Diocese of Chicago