for future ministers among the Happy Danes,
has been sold to a for-profit education firm.
"In 1884 Danish Lutheran pioneers established Trinity Seminary at Blair, Nebraska, for the purpose of training men for the parish ministry. Reverend A. M. Andersen, founder of the institution, began teaching seminary courses in his home. Two years later, the first permanent building on the campus was completed. The main emphasis during those early days was on theology and, although some academic courses were offered, they were taught primarily as a background for theological study. The need for additional academic courses was recognized but not fulfilled until 1899 when the Danish College at Elk Horn, Iowa, was merged with the Blair school. The result was the establishment of Dana College as a separate educational institution." Source
From Wikipedia:
The institution faced economic troubles in the 2000s. In 2010 it was sold to a group investors who formed the Dana Education Corporation. This group intends to transform the institution into a for-profit institution with a focus on "doubling enrollment, aggressively marketing the school and building Dana's study abroad program."
ELCA put a smiley face on the Happy Danes in their news release.
Some are asking, "Howzacome you are covering Blair, Nebraska in your position as self-appointed journalist for apostasy?"
I stayed overnight at Dana College when the Augustana College concert band toured the Great Plains. The Happy Danes were a tiny contingent of the LCA, often overlooked in the 1960s merger. The Happy Danes of the LCA were Grundtvigians, contrasted with the Gloomy Danes (Pietists) who joined The ALC.
Grundtvig wrote two very famous hymns: "Built on a Rock," and "God's Word is our great heritage."
Dana's room, board, and tuition were running at $27,000 a year when the school was sold to a for-profit, much like tiny Waldorf College in Iowa. Notre Dame and Yale are costing about $50,000 a year now.
The tiny colleges are failing because their fixed costs are extremely high while their appeal is rather limited. Strange how these little schools survived in the days before federal loans plumped up their finances.
How do they become for-profits? If I may share a few insights from Grand Canyon University, the process works this way:
1. The school is bought for a fraction of the cost of building a new campus.
2. Tenure ends and the over-paid and under-worked faculty may be fired.
3. Online students are added from all over the country.
The key is going online. People feel better about an actual campus location rather than getting a diploma from a server farm. I used to kid online students about logging onto their computers on graduation day for their jpg diploma. I get little in-house training certificates that way, but online graduation is normal, with robes and certificates and speeches.
Not long ago, online schools were a shock. Now everyone takes them for granted. The Ivy Leagues offer online courses. But Mrs. Ichabod and I went to college the old way, which comprises 16% of all college students today. Few can afford the luxury of living at school and taking classes. I commuted.
One college had to limit the number of online courses the students could take, because they were in the dorms and taking all online classes.
The itty-bitty WELS/ELS colleges will have to merge or sell themselves to a for-profit concern. They are not going to survive the next crunch.
Mary Lou College collects a huge fee for the paltry education offered.
Your Costs, 2009-2010
Tuition - $10,660
Room & Board - $4,140
Total = $14,800
For that they often get faculty whose education is little more than a bachelor's degree, in academic standing. Larry Olson has unaccredited MDiv and a Fuller DMin. With that he runs the "Staff Ministry" program, the foundation for women pastors in WELS. Most colleges would laugh at his qualifications to teach. In the Assemblies of God, or the CLC (sic), he would be among the intellectual giants.
Jobs are few in New Ulm. Anyone could stay home, work full-time, and earn an online degree with that amount of money. The teacher candidates are not going to teach. The future ministers will need to have picked the right parents to get a call. If they attend Chicanery conferences, they may get two calls.
---
