Seabury-Western Theological Seminary announces major restructuring, discernment

Chicago-area school to end residential Master of Divinity program, suspend all admissions

By Mary Frances Schjonberg
February 22, 2008

[Episcopal News Service] Officials of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, saying that the seminary "cannot continue to operate as we have in the past," announced February 20 that the school will stop offering the traditional version of a Master of Divinity degree and would soon develop "a detailed plan for the future operation of Seabury, including a financial plan that brings expenses in line with revenues."
The decision by the Board of Trustees came during its regular February meeting, according to a statement posted on the Evanston, Illinois-based seminary's website.

"Like many other Episcopal Church institutions, over the past two decades Seabury has both confronted and thought hard about how it can adapt to the challenges and opportunities of the present moment," the statement said. "We believe that the church does not need Seabury in its present form; there are a number of other schools who do what we have traditionally done as well as we do. But we also believe that the church very much needs 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, one which is flexible and adaptive and collaborative in nature."

The immediate impact of the decision, according to the statement, will be the elimination of the Master of Divinity degree "as a freestanding three-year residential program." The program may be offered in some other format in the future, the statement said. The majority of priests ordained in the Episcopal Church earn a Master of Divinity degree.

In addition, the seminary will "immediately suspend recruitment and admissions to all degree and certificate programs in this time of discernment."

Along with the Master of Divinity degree, Seabury also offers the Master of Theological Studies in Church Music and Liturgy (MTS) degree, the Master of Arts (MA) degree, a certificate program in advanced theological studies, a licentiate in theology (designed for students without a baccalaureate degree) and a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) degree.

Seabury will help all of its approximately 50 current D.Min. students to complete their programs, the statement said. The school will also "assist all current M.Div., MTS, MA, and certificate students to find alternative arrangements for the completion of their programs as may be required."

The statement said that "at the center of our immediate concern is the well being of our students, faculty and staff."

Seabury Dean and President Gary Hall reportedly informed the Seabury community, bishops and the deans of the other 10 Episcopal Church-affiliated seminaries of the plans first, and then began notifying alums, donors, and the wider church.

Meanwhile, the statement said, Seabury is talking to what it called "potential partner institutions" in terms of the school's future shape "and to enable all those affected by these decisions to make the transitions they may be required to make as plans emerge."

The statement said Hall will work with an eight-member planning committee to develop plans for Seabury's future operations, including "recommendations for the immediate future of current programs," to present at a special board meeting in April. The committee will include six officers and/or trustees and two faculty members. The committee may also hire consultants and "explore potential partnerships with appropriate institutions."

Context of decision
Seabury had agreed earlier this year to participate with most of the other Episcopal-affiliated seminaries to consolidate their efforts in four areas of theological education. Seabury is to be part of a group that also includes the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Episcopal Divinity School and Bexley Hall looking at ways to cooperate in the area of local ministry development programs.

The Very Rev. Ward Ewing, dean and president of the General Theological Seminary (GTS) in New York City and convener of the seminaries' Council of Deans, told Episcopal News Service in 2007 that that the deans had realized that because of financial restrictions faced by all the seminaries, "every seminary can't provide everything for everybody."

Thus, they began exploring how to develop "the kind of coalition so that each seminary becomes a gateway to the resources of all the seminaries."

"Some of the seminaries' very existence is threatened; others are simply looking at long-term development," Ewing said at the time.

The challenges facing the seminaries did not develop overnight, Ewing said, tracing what he called "a major sociological change about religion and churches."

"Call it post-Christendom or whatever you want to call it, but it's a major change in how the churches work…and that affects the seminaries"

Even the goals of seminarians are changing. Ewing said in 2007 that the Association of Theological Schools, an accrediting agency, had noted that mainline Protestant seminaries reached a milestone in 2004: the majority of their students did not expect to have "pulpit ministries." That trend has not yet been seen in Episcopal seminaries, Ewing said, but they must pay attention.

Seabury's statement noted that "all the seminaries of the Episcopal Church face real economic and missional challenges."

"The stand-alone residential model developed in the nineteenth century is becoming unsustainable for most of our institutions," the statement continued. "Bishops, congregations, and seminarians have fewer resources to allot to the education of seminarians. And the cost of theological education has resulted in an unprecedented level of student debt."

The traditional three-year residential model of seminary education is changing; not all students attend full-time, not all live on campus or even near-by. These days Episcopal-affiliated seminaries educate just less than half of the people ordained as priests in the Episcopal Church. Seminaries have thus seen their costs increase dramatically while the pool of potential students has shrunk. Those costs include both a large percentage of educational costs not covered by tuition and the bill to maintain physical plants that often include buildings at least 150 years old.

The 11 seminaries have very few official ties to the Episcopal Church, beyond General Convention's authority to elect six of GTS trustees. The wider church does not financially support the seminaries.

Yet, as Seabury's statement noted, "multiple church groups continue to call for a new range of educational services from our institutions of theological education: continuing education for clergy, lay education, distance learning, and consulting services for congregations and dioceses."

Within this context, however, are "enormously creative opportunities facing seminaries today," Seabury said. The school's officials are "committed to Seabury’s historic and ongoing ministry as a vital center of theological education, reflection, and congregational study" and are "enthusiastic about the prospect of doing this in a new and, we hope, more economically feasible and pedagogically innovative way."

Calling Seabury "a school in service of the mission of God as proclaimed and enacted in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ," the statement concludes by saying "our hearts and minds are filled with a multitude of emotions."

"Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we move into this new understanding of our mission," the statement concluded.

-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for Episcopal Church governance, structure, and trends, as well as news of the dioceses of Province II. She is based in Neptune, New Jersey, and New York City.