Seminary status check - Living Lutheran:
"At Lutheran Southern Seminary, leaders are developing more programs of interest beyond Lutheranism to attract more students.
The high cost of postgraduate education is also a major concern for the seminaries and their students, and there are significant plans to make it possible for people to get through seminary without incurring tens of thousands of dollars of debt. The seminaries, too, often operate on a deficit budget, draining reserve funds or incurring the heavy costs of debt.
In an effort directed both at reducing student debt and developing a new form of seminary education, Trinity is changing its master of divinity program into a “2+2” package. A student spends two years in seminary and then two years on an internship during which time they also take online classes.
When he was a parish pastor, Barger said he had 15 interns and eight of those were in the congregation for two years. “The difference that the two years made was astonishing; it was a much better formation of a new pastor,” he said.
Distance learning technology makes that kind of education possible, said Johnson from Wartburg. Her school was working with students in North Dakota who would be serving in congregations while taking online courses. “Our distance learning programs use video so the faces of the online students are seen in the classroom by the other students,” she said."
'via Blog this'
