included seminary mergers.
His motto: "Doctrine divides, but service unites."
July 2, 2009
ELCA Seminary Measuring Effect of Mccormick Decision to 'Disengage'
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC)asked a special finance task force to assess the impact of a decision by the board of neighboring McCormick Theological Seminary. McCormick will initiate a process to "disengage" from a real estate arrangement with LSTC as early as June 2010.
LSTC is one of eight seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). McCormick is one of 10 seminaries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which became a full-communion partner of the ELCA in 1997.
"LSTC will always give thanks for the partnership of the two schools in the ministry of theological education," said the Rev. James Kenneth Echols, LSTC president. "The seminary also regrets the strained financial circumstances that have led McCormick to make its decision," to pursue an "orderly disengagement" from the real estate portion of its relationship with LSTC, he said.
LSTC's board appointed the special finance task force in 2008. The task force is considering plans that include potential building reconfigurations and new campus partners.
In 1975 McCormick moved its campus alongside LSTC in the Hyde Park area of Chicago, and the seminaries began sharing academic, library and housing facilities. In 2003 McCormick constructed its own administration building on the campus, but now that building will be put up for sale.
A report in Crain's Chicago Real Estate Daily said McCormick's capital program, which included construction of its administration building, left the seminary $30 million in debt with annual bond payments of $1 million.
"We are simply spending a disproportionate and, unfortunately, growing share of our resources on occupancy-related costs," said the Rev. Cynthia M. Campbell, McCormick president, on the seminary's Web site. In addition, McCormick funds 70 percent of its budget from the school's endowment, which recently lost about 30 percent of its value, she said.
David Crawford, McCormick vice president for administration and finance, told Crain's the seminary's decision to sell the administration building is part of a long-term plan to meet its financial challenges.
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GJ - Conrad Bergendoff was the Boy Wonder of the Augustana Synod, earning a PhD at the U. of Chicago long ago. He favored merger of the Swedish Augustana Synod with the ULCA, so his wish came true in 1960. Here is more information about Bergendoff.
I remember when the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago was built, created from merging the Augustana Seminary in Rock Island, a small seminary in Midland, and Maywood in Chicago. They built in Hyde Park (Chicago), near the U. of Chicago campus built overnight with Rockefeller money.
In a few years the Jesuit school came to the new campus, which was way overbuilt, a white elephant. Next the Presbyterian McCormick seminary moved to the campus. All three libraries were merged and students could take classes in three schools at once: Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian - a panoply of doctrines, much like WELS and Missouri today.
Presbyterian schools are well endowed, but McCormick apparently spent its money on a fancy admin building and soon took an endowment hit with equity meltdown. The Ivy League schools are reporting a 30% one-year loss in endowment, so everyone is scrambling to stay afloat.
Three Lutheran seminaries and three other schools merged in some fashion to form a union which is now dissolving in some way.
LSTC is a green zone. My bosom heaved with emotion when I read about them recycling ink cartridges and using recycled paper. Mother Earth must be pleased.
PS - Kent Hunter, LCMS, got his ThD at LSTC before getting a drive-by DMin from Fuller Seminary. Hunter and Waldo Werning were going to do a seminar for WELS together, years ago, but that got canceled, leading to all kinds of hissing and yowling from Church and Chicaneries.
