Sunday, April 1, 2007
From Lutheran Notes, Bruce Church.
Future Class-Action Lawsuit Versus The WELS
What follows is an advertisement that will be sent to students of the WELS prep schools and MLC (Martin Luther College) in in future, say, around 2011:
Do you not exactly feel prepared for college and life, at least outside the WELS system?
Did you:
o Attend a WELS prep school, either Martin Luther Seminary (MLS) or Martin Luther Prep (MLP)?
o Have a parochial school certification but cannot teach in public schools without further training, and cannot teach in Lutheran parochial schools because there are no jobs available?
o Did you drop out of MLC along the way, but now cannot place decently in a good secular college because you lack credit in many hard classes?
If you answered yes to at least one of the questions above, that is because you attended one of the WELS prep schools and/or WELS college, and they provided a religious-classical education when what you really needed for life was a modern education, that being shop class, or advanced placement classes in, to name a few, physics, calculus, statistics and economics. These are normally provided free from your local public high school, but you missed the boat. What's really scandalous is the prep schools made the students learn Spanish and German (formerly Latin and German) all out of books with no audio visual aids. So even in 2007 a prep student will have 4 years of Spanish and 2 of German and still not be able to speak the languages, much less remember much of it--because a language one has never conversed in is a language one forgets most of.
Do you wonder why your WELS pastor and/or teachers encouraged you to attend prep school and/or MLC in the first place when you really weren't all that particularly spiritual, nor all that interested in doctrine, history, languages and the classics, and certainly was not pastor and teacher material then, and never would be?
What you need to know is that back in 2007 the WELS was faced with a 5 million dollar operating expense deficit. How the synod got into this predicament is they allowed too many students into MLC in the 1990s. Then during the Dot Com Bust of 2001 they didn't have calls for the deserving candidates, much less the students whom the WELS customarily tells to hit the road and get lost after pocketing a lot of their student money. That's right, each student pays 10,000+ dollars per year to attend MLC, much of it in the form of student loans the student must pay back. Since then MLC has been running behind by a few million dollars, but then in 2007 it became
5 million dollars in the red. What is really scandalous is that even though the synodical schools have been around for over a hundred years, they just started to form endowment funds in the last few years. So the synodical schools have been living hand to mouth, and lately from students' pockets to mouth.
So in 2007 a synod advisory body suggested closing MLS to close the gap between expenses and revenue, but the pastors would have none of it. At first the pastors were going to sign a petition asking the synod to downsize its bureaucracy and solve the deficit that way, but that fizzled out. The reason is that in the WELS the pastors and teachers hold fifty percent of the vote at conventions. They also control most of the news since there is hardly any scandal sheet worthy of the label. Only the Christian News of the LCMS occasionally contains un-censored information on the WELS. Since the laymen only read the glossy WELS magazines about the synod, and hear only what the leaders want them to hear, the WELS is similar to a fully employee-owned corporation even though the clergy and teacher only get half the votes at conventions. Employees are not about to lay each other off, nor tell synod desk jockeys to go out and start mission churches, because that's hard work. Also, the route where the WELS downsizes by not filling positions as people move or retire doesn't work too well since many pastors work in the WELS until they are 70 or older.
Here's some of what laymen should hear but will never hear it from the top, nor from their pastors. The WELS schools utilize their resources and campuses poorly.
o There are few teachers assistants, but full professors do everything from giving repetitive lectures to grading papers. This robs the graduate students of good jobs, ones that could be part of the federal student jobs program even, and not cost the synod a dime.
o The class sizes are just 15 to 25 when many classes could easily be held in larger rooms and auditoriums so professors or teachers assistants would not need to give the same lecture to two or more classrooms per day or per week. There should be no, say, History 101 Section A, B, C and D, since all 200 students should be in one section.
o The facilities are not rented out much, but just sit idle when they could be making the synod money.
o Before closing MLS, or along with closing MLS, the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary (WLS) should be combined with MLC at New Ulm. That's because there is more than enough room to fit 150 seminary students on New Ulm's campus now that enrollment there has dropped. Besides, there are many eligible women for the future pastors to date on MLC's campus, especially now that MLC has a masters degree program. This means many women students will be the same age as the seminarians, and have about as much education to boot. Besides, the WELS is tired of pastors who found their wives while dating in bars in Milwaukee because driving to New Ulm is too far. The trip across "the River", an allusion that compares the Mississippi River to Isaac's obtaining a wife, Rebbecca, from across the Mesopotamian River, is a whopping 399 miles, or about 7 hours and 6 minutes without any breaks.
The 1920s-era seminary in Mequon is built in the old brick style without insulation, and wastes a lot of heat. At anyone time there are only 150 students there. Also, there is a lot of mowing and grounds work. The sem property in Mequon is in a prime location just a couple miles from the shore of Lake Michigan, and could sell for many millions of dollars, enough to build nice dormitories and a better chapel at MLC. That brings up another scandal--that the WELS can't build anything over a few stories tall, thereby wasting a lot of real estate and money per square foot of livable area, and wasting a lot on heating.
o The Synod could be downsized in two says. Some ministries could be spun off so they fund themselves. For example, WELS Lutherans for Life need not be anywhere in the synodical budget (if it is now). Also, retired pastors could be utilized who would be paid for their services as they deliver them rather than a more expensive salary for full-time workers. The synod's administrative budget should be only 10% at most. Missions could also be spun off, just like the ELS synod has Thoughts of Faith fund and control all their missions overseas.
Ok, back to the latest scandal. After twiddling their thumbs in a meeting, someone suggested that the MLC and the two prep schools just increase their enrollment. That's pretty much how the budget for these schools was met in the past. Many students who had no business being in a school meant to prepare people for the ministry and parochial school teaching were allowed to attend for various reasons--all of them bad reasons. Often the reason was the parents were too busy working to parent, and the prep school served as a surrogate parent. So the other students had to put up with these unruly, unparented students who often had a lot of money to spend on entertainment.
So these WELS pastors, all of whom make well north of 40 grand per year when housing, insurance and perks are factored in, decided to balance the synodical budget on the backs of students who will be lucky to make even 30 grand if they face the job market or college market with only a classical education. Yes, they said that they figured the WELS would grow and there would be enough pastor and teacher slots, but if they had to bet on it with their own money, they'd pass. In other words, these WELS pastors pulled a "Jim Bakker" on you. That's the evangelist who sold condominiums in a project that his accountants said would go bust. However, Jimmy Bakker had faith that it would all work out. Anyway, a lot of people lost their shirts, Bakker went to jail, because the judge did not buy off on Bakker's assertion that having faith in the project was not the same as transacting business in "good faith":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bakker
So, please sign the attached form to join the
the lawsuit. Thank-you.
Sincerely,
Mr. Lawyer
***
MLS Veteran has left a new comment on your post "Commentary on WELS Schools":
I agree with many of the criticisms in this article.
If you are seeking an education with the intent of going on to a secular university or college, you may want to rethink attending a prep school, especially if you would not be a day student.
I was always told by pastors, professors, teachers what an elite education I would be receiving.
After graduating, I was shocked at how well some of the public school students I was competing against were trained in math and science.
This was particularily a weak spot for MLS. The humanities were definitely emphasized at the expense of math and natural sciences.
Also, there are no career counselors at MLS (aside from encourage you to continue on to becoming a Lutheran teacher or pastor). Nor was there any "college fairs" where secular universities would come to school to talk about their institutions or academic programs. Finally, there was no help in finding scholarships or grants to the secular universities.
However, I must emphasize that MLS and Luther Prep are not in the business of educating students for the outside world. Technically, you cannot fault them for that.
HOWEVER, STUDENTS WHO WANT TO ATTEND A PREP SCHOOL SHOULD BE CLEAR THAT THESE ARE SOME OF THE SHORT COMINGS OF ATTENDING A WELS PREP SCHOOL !!!
That, and the infamous freshman, "Zex" year at MLS, should be factors in considering whether or not to attend a WELS prep school :)
