From Former "It's OK To Pray" DP Dave Benke. ALPB Ovaltines Discuss Their Failing Colleges

 

LCMS DP Dave Benke signs his posts - "It's ok to pray" - because he invited himself to the pan-religious 9-11 Yankee Stadium event and led in prayer there. LCMS ended up firing Wallie Schulz for finding Benke guilty. Benke was hired back from the Schulz verdict and so "It's OK to pray" is on all his Ovaltine posts - aka ALPB Online Forum.

Benke quote:

The new CUWAA Strategic Plan called, "Wholeheartedly, We Will" was worked on for a year by a hired external consultant and dozens of stakeholders. This plan was approved by the Board of Regents during their February 8, 2024 meeting.

*** 

GJ

My initial response was - Church Growth Management by Objective Strikes Again!

Examples -

This plan includes the following goals:

1.3.1 Within 3 years, the Enrollment and Academics Units will collaborate to ensure that the

university—across its campuses—serves the largest number of LCMS church work students in

the CUS.

1.3.2 Within 4 years, the Enrollment and Mission and Church Relation Units will collaborate to

grow the number of Christian traditional undergraduate students across its campuses to 90%.

3.1.1 Within 4 years, the Enrollment and Student Success Units will achieve an overall

enrollment of 8,500 students across the campuses. ( GJ - There's more, but this is enough.)

Graduates of Fuller Seminary have to be the dumbest of all, because they have caused a rapidly increasing downhill slide ever since 1980 or so. After 44+ years of shrinkage, they continue to pander to the Drucker MBO, its crafts and assaults. The hired external consultant (big salary) got various people to write exuberant statements about what would happen for their LCMS colleges in the years to come. 

All colleges, universities, and community colleges are shrinking - a fact which most people ignore. I might guess that they had a frenzy of expensive additions to aim for the country club effect, to attract more students. One idea, years ago, was to charge less tuition (via grants and scholarships) to make the first two years easier to pay. Student/parent payments go up for the last two years because course credit transfers do not work very well. 

One university said on the phone, "We can only count six hours of credit from your previous school." The student said, "Then I am not signing up." The counselor responded, "OK. All your credits will transfer."

Student loans are mortgages on the students' futures, so not to worry, students and parents. America has decided that lacking a four-year degree might not be so bad.

One can guess that all the Lutheran colleges will fade away in the next decade. Most - if not all of them - major in non-Lutheran students.

And one more item which again is astounding to me:  ENDOWMENT QUESTIONS
🚨IMPORTANT NEW INFORMATION: Of the anticipated $9 million deficit in operations between the two campuses this fiscal year, it appears that over $7 million is in depreciation. In other words, not contributing to a cash flow problem. This is not to be ignored, but the operating deficit is largely depreciation and not a loss of cash.
RESEARCH
• (Updated 2/26) Comparative Data within a sample of 39 institutions in Michigan and Wisconsin: https://bit.ly/comparative-data-2-26
• (New!) Long-term trends for CUWAA (as a whole), Wisconsin, and Ann Arbor https://bit.ly/cuwaa-long-term-trends
Additional questions for consideration:
Would the money that has been raised for Ann Arbor campus projects such as the Maier Center and the Weight Room addition (some $10 million) be returned by Concordia University Wisconsin to those who provided the funds?
Would the dollars originally given by various Districts of The LCMS and the Michigan Church Extension Fund be returned to them by Concordia University Wisconsin? The assumption was that those funds were given for a long-term solution, not a 10-year-solution.
The endowments that are held by CUW for CUAA (now valued at some $27 million) were generally given by Michigan District residents for the benefit of Michigan students. Would those funds be returned by Concordia University Wisconsin to the Michigan District to use to defray expenses for Michigan students attending Lutheran high schools, or other Concordia universities, or the seminaries?

What in the world is going on here?

Dave Benke

It's OK to Pray