Long ago, this blog predicted that three tiny colleges would not continue to exist within one day's driving distance.
After spending $30 million on merging DMLC and NWC, closing Prairie, and building up NW Prep (now Luther Prep), and blowing $8 million on a chapel at MLC - WELS is closing the New Ulm campus.
The two causes are poor enrollment and declining financial support.
The pastor track will return to Watertown, giving hope to the bartenders who cater to minors. That will also re-create Northwestern College.
The teacher track will move to Willowcreek's Little College in Milwaukee.
WELS has accomplished so much with the largest charitable gift ever donated to a religious group - the Schwan avalanche, in case you do not know.
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MLC Student from Borneo:
As much as I might hate to say it, that's a pretty viable route for WELS to take. I don't think it'll happen within this school year, but I can conceive it happening perhaps in 2011-2012.
Yet another point adding validity to the claim: Some students at MLC are a lot like unpaid faculty (myself included). For example: suppose I happen to be attending a real college like UW Madison. I could demand about $250 for being an actor in a musical. Being an audio-video technician for a play could get me anywhere from $200-$1000 per performance. Hymn Festival (just earlier this evening) could get me at least $50 compensation for being an accompanist.
I'm doing all of this and more for free. By my calculations, after less than two months of school, Martin Luther College should owe me well over $1000 for services rendered. And don't even get me started on how many thousands in scholarships I didn't get because I'm attending MLC. My freshman year at WLC could have been free.
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Greg, moving the pastor track back to Watertown should not be a big issue. The buildings are already there. All they have to do is either call it Northwestern College again or even Luther College depending on the legalities of the name. I bet most of the profs that would be teaching the future pastors would love to go to Watertown. I just can not see MLC lasting more than a couple of school years. New Ulm just does not have anything there or around it close for these students to do or work for.
I think by what you are hearing it is in the works.
Diablo
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GJ - Someone told me MLC students are talking about the post - "another lie."
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Trevor has left a new comment on your post "WELS Martin Luther College Will Close: Pastor Trac...":
@GJ: The difference between this blog entry and others is that this is a report of news/fact whereas your other entries are commentary. I tend to agree with your commentary because of my understanding of God's Word. But because this report is not supported by any evidence, it has the same credibility as reports in the National Enquirer about Oprah having lesbian relationships with Gayle Kink and Diane Sawyer.
To you (sic) later point, just because the school has contingency plans does not mean that it's failing. As you well know, there are many CG people in the WELS. These people have it in their craw to close ALL of the synod schools. Hopefully those people are kept in check (or better shown the error of their ways) but nonetheless it's prudent to be aware of and plan for many possibilities.
@Brett Meyer: I don't see how your question for me is germane to the thread. That being said, I did not identify as gay at that time.
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GJ - It is a fact that this was passed on to me, and the source was in a position to know. If I blabbed about sources, I would not have any, would I? Someone not believing me is not exactly an argument or refutation.
If nothing happens, I will say, this is the person who said it. Since there is a witness, it cannot be denied. Either it is an actual plan or it is a falsehood fed to me through someone. The statistics argue for the campus closing. The need for parochial teachers is declining rapidly. The current SP newsletter has money being spent elsewhere rather than shoring up the schools.
28 comments:
I had to double check the calendar for what month we are in. Check. It's still October and not April. More satire or is this for reals?
JK
This is insane leadership. The devil could not do a better job of destroying a synod.
Is this an advance press release from within WELS, or just your prediction of what will happen?
This is not satire. Someone told me this. What I wrote is all I know at the moment.
Where is the link? Or at least the FIC article...otherwise the 'someone' is not a credible source...?
You will have to wait for the official denial to confirm that it is true. I plucked this from the WELS grapevine.
I have to agree that this is probably one of those hysteria rumors....
It would be more likely for one of the preps to close than for MLC to close (especially after the recent opening of the new college chapel).
Here is how it probably went down:
a) Someone in a meeting said if we keep going like this we will finally need to close our school
b) Someone heard that person say "The school is closing" and told someone else.
c) That person, trying to figure out where the teacher training and undergraduate pastor training would take place if MLC closed, just picked some small college for MLC and re-established NWC in Watertown. Would Luther Prep that morph back into Northwestern prep?
So hep cats and cool kitties, I expect an invasion from Mars before they close MLC, or even before they close one of the preps. As Mark Twain once wrote, "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated "
Off the record,
On the QT,
And VERY hush, hush
You are wrong Grumpy. You have no idea how I got the information. It is funny that you invent a situation out of thin air and state that is the likely scenario. That is easy to do anonymously.
This post will remain open for apologies when the news is confirmed. Sooner or later it will happen, and MLS will close too.
Mequon is not off the table, either. Selling the campus has been discussed.
I think we need to put some kind of time limit...say until the end of the year (Dec 31st, 2010) ?
If you are correct, I will send you and your wife a gift card to Applebee's, or TGIFriday, or some other chain restaurant that is in your area (let's say $25).
If this is just a rumor, then you owe me, oh, let's say, 50 "free" spelling errors.
I guess it's not impossible, but I think it highly UNLIKELY that this report is true. If it was one of the preps closing, I would give it credence. But a shift of this magnitude, I think you might have a double agent feeding you disinformation....
Of course, it could be that:
They know there is a leak at HQ.
They suspect person X is the leak.
They feed person X a story (and ONLY to person X) to see if it appears on Ichabod.
It appears on Ichabod.
Person X has, as the Chinese curse goes, "An interesting life" from that point on.
Off the record,
On the QT,
And VERY Hush, Hush.
"You will have to wait for the official denial to confirm that it is true."
Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
The way that MLC is literally forced down your throat as a WELS student, I must confess with grumpy that I also find this somewhat hard to believe. However, I always thought the distance of MLC way out in the boondocks of Minnesota was counterproductive, considering that most major WELS institutions are in the Milwaukee area. I will be interested to see if this pans out!
Grumpy is right that a story could be floated to identify a leaker. Or it could be leaked so that the WELSians could say, "Another lie from Ichabod." We'll see. I have seen that attempted several times in the past, when Kuske was district VP and even after he was voted out of office.
I will be happy to identify the leaker if nothing comes of this, but new information suggests that it is more likely than people imagine. I won't offer the details because of what they reveal.
I know very well that MLC has been trying to reach 1000 students to loosen up the money spigot for Church and Change projects. They have steadily lost students. Mueller-Gurgle put the hit on the schools some time ago by forcing a huge increase in tuition and losing a generation of students.
The schools were fragile before Obamessiah was elected. Massive unemployment puts all of them at risk. Consolidation is going to happen when 3 tiny colleges are within a day's drive, two of them 40 miles apart (Bethany and MLC).
Enrollments make a school viable, because tuition = salaries. Buildings do not equal salaries. Low enrollments mean the tipping point is reached faster.
Two ELCA colleges closed in the last year. Is WELS better financed than ELCA?
Sure the gay video has done wonders for recruitment referrals, especially from the Fire Island Pines area, but MLC does not have the appropriate majors.
The saints are groaning over what has become of the visible church and it's politics. It all sounds like some kind of bad 'B' movie...
Nota bene: Lawrence Otto Olson, DMin, Fuller Seminary, has a call to India. You know what they say about rats leaving a sinking ship, and India has its own Rat Temple.
Yeah, so I just stumbled upon this blog a few days ago. To say the least, I've been intrigued by the WELS commentary as an LPS/MLC alumni. This "report" however is the silliest thing that I've read here and quite honestly it calls to question the credibility of everything else that I've read so far.
First of all, the school could only be closed as a result of a decision of the synod in convention.
Secondly, moving the teacher education program to WLC is not viable. WLC is not a synod school, it is just affiliated with the synod. I'm more than confident that there are enough people in the synod that know the only way to have any control over what's taught in the school is to manage the school directly. Additionally, the WLC campus could not support the influx of 4, 5, or 600 additional students.
Moreover, it was not that long ago that MLC's enrollment was at its highest ever and TPTB, Mark Schroder in particular, knows that enrollment ebbs and flows. To make such a knee jerk reaction right now would be foolish.
I've found your commentary on things like Time of Grace and Party in the MLC to be spot on but "news" like this that is so obviously fake should be given no blog space if you want people to actually believe what you say.
Trevor, at least you identify yourself, which is more than I can say for most who comment. I am right about a lot of things but suddenly wrong?
Someone who knows said some of the alleged plans make sense.
Not everyone would go to Willowcreek's Little College. Some would go to Watertown - kinda like that comedy title "Return to Love Canal," about people who left a toxic dump only to return.
Trevor, your blogger profile states that you are gay. As an MLC graduate didn't the official position of the (W)ELS against homosexuality cause you to question your attendance?
"Enrollments make a school viable, because tuition = salaries. Buildings do not equal salaries."
Prospective students visit colleges. One college has a shinier building than another. Students then enroll in college with the shiniest building.
Perhaps the new chapel is a last-ditch experiment to the above equation?
I didn't even expect you to put such hearsay fodder on your blog, Jackson.
I would be amazed if MLC closed. And I have it on good authority that it won't anytime soon.
As for the kid from Borneo, I would love to see him "demand" $250 to be in a musical. I'm sure he's a hot commodity that MGM or Universal would love to get their hands on. He does it for the attention, same as all actors. And he volunteers for the other stuff out of love for your school. If his attitude is that they should be paying him for all this stuff then I question his loyalty to the position he is training for.
Can I just say that as an LPS alumni and former MLC student that I too have issues with the educational system in the wels, even the synod itself, but is it really in christian love that this site even exists? Obviously there are issues in the synod. We are all sinful human beings. Is spreading rumors that are destructive to God's church on earth, and bashing other christians a proper rebuttal to sin? The devil works through these ways as well. We all know this. I would ask that you please question your own motives before attacking a vessel of faith. Not all professors and members of the LPS and MLC faculty body are as closed minded as you say they are.
God's Blessings
Is there anything written here that is not filled with bile? You wonder why people are leaving the Lutheran Church in droves - it's because people like you have set yourself so far up on the throne of God that you can't see the contempt for what you call "the visible church" that pours off of you.
I have seen Luther quoted here far more than any apostle. Luther, an anti-Semite who encouraged butchery of all who didn't agree with him. And that heritage has seemingly been passed down a few centuries. MLC, the WELS, or whoever doesn't agree with your vaulted position must be torn down and eliminated. Pray for them? Not likely. Ostracize those who are weak or struggling in the faith? It's practically a pastime.
My life became so much easier when I became agnostic. The teaching you espouse has ruined families and lives.
Hi The Epistler,
One thing that you should at least give credit to Pr. Jackson, he at least publishes critical comments against him. In my observation, this does not happen in the other blogs whose fanaticism for their Synods is so obvious, and bloggers who are in the clique. I think trouble comes in when Christians become more loyal to their denomination (Synods) than to the Scriptures. It is Triumphalism that causes things to go down south. Triumphalism is not always seen outwardly, it is seen subtly in attitudes and behavior. This does not escape God's notice.
The title of this blog is indeed appropriate - the Glory has departed. God has departed from groups where his truth is not honored and where being polite is more important than being prophetic.
LPC
I love irony. Could Jed Elise and the Epistler be anymore diametrically opposed and yet almost say the same thing?
The idea of the MLC campus moving to WLC and Watertown has been discussed amongst faculty and students for years. This is nothing new. MLC has been smart in considering a back-up plan in the event that the school could not remain open. There has never been talk of this being an actual possibilty. MLC will not be closing anytime soon. Besides, WLC is currently at its full capacity so there is no way they would consider adding an extra 400+ students to their campus.
So it has already been considered, eh? MLC has been failing for years, so an exit plan is necessary. As I wrote before, this idea came from WELS and not my creative imagination.
@GJ: The difference between this blog entry and others is that this is a report of news/fact whereas your other entries are commentary. I tend to agree with your commentary because of my understanding of God's Word. But because this report is not supported by any evidence, it has the same credibility as reports in the National Enquirer about Oprah having lesbian relationships with Gayle Kink and Diane Sawyer.
To you later point, just because the school has contingency plans does not mean that it's failing. As you well know, there are many CG people in the WELS. These people have it in their craw to close ALL of the synod schools. Hopefully those people are kept in check (or better shown the error of their ways) but nonetheless it's prudent to be aware of and plan for many possibilities.
@Brett Meyer: I don't see how your question for me is germane to the thread. That being said, I did not identify as gay at that time.
Hmmmm I know a news person can never reveal his source but through the WELS grapevine personally does not sound any too convincing because I have heard lots of things through this same "WELS grapevine"...
@ The Epistler and to everyone WELS or not
I am a sinner. You are a sinner. Every single member of WELS is a sinner. We both have "fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23)" from our conception we have been sinners.
But as you have made your comments on your Universal Justification. Which is just that. Universal. For everyone. God does not allow one to be saved and another not. "(God) who wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1st Tim 2:4)"
But none of this is accord to our own doing because we can do nothing to help us. We can do nothing to help.
"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. ( 1 Cor 2:14)"
We are saved by grace through faith. Grace given to us through the death and resurrection of Christ. Through this faith one one is credited righteousness and eternal life.
The largest and most important difference between WELS and other synods is not that one is saving or not because unlike some inside WELS think that there is believers outside of WELS and that we will see others in heaven but the difference is our Historical-Grammatical approach to Scriptures compared to Historical-Critical.
In closing, while we have very different view points on Scripture and Fellowship, while we feel the need to bash and speak negatively about other synods and other people(which is our sinful nature which we ALL have), All the Holy Spirit needs is The Word and Sacraments to work faith in ones heart. And through faith, life eternal in heaven with our Lord.
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