Showing posts with label accreditation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accreditation. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 03, 2023

What does it mean to be the Christ School of Theology?

As many readers might know, the Institute of Lutheran Theology's seminary and graduate school is called the Christ School of Theology, and we are all about the accreditation of this institution. 

When checking our accreditation with the Association of Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) find us under The Institute of Lutheran Theology.  View our ABHE fact sheet here: https://app.weaveeducation.com/publicFiles/institutionprofilepdfs/Institute_of_Lutheran_Theology-ABHE_-_Association_for_Biblical_Higher_Education_Fact_Sheet.pdf.  We have been a full member of ABHE since initial accreditation in 2018.  We successfully achieved our first ten-year accreditation with ABHE at the 2023 February meeting of ABHE's Commission on Accreditation. 

When checking on us on the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) website, always look for Christ School of Theology. Christ School of Theology is the accreditable entity as for as ATS is concerned.  You can find us on the ATS website here: https://www.ats.edu/member-schools/christ-school-of-theology-of-the-institute-of-lutheran-theology.  While we have not been officially accredited by ATS's Commission on Accreditation yet, we are already Associate members of the ATS, and are engaged in many activities with them.  We are working hard to get our self-study complete this year, and anticipate an ATS visit in February of 2024.  

My thoughts in 2005-06 was that a new Lutheran House of Studies was needed that would serve all Lutherans -- especially ELCA Lutherans. This House of Studies, I argued, should be independent, autonomous and accredited, should assume the basic hermeneutic of the Lutheran Reformation on Scripture, and should be straightforwardly realist in its understanding of God and of theological language generally.  ILT, I thought, should be fully engaged with the question of truth, particularly the question of how to connect the truth of theology with the truths of the special sciences.   

ILT will begin its fifteenth year of offering classes in the fall of 2023 and, I must say, we are moving forward nicely. I always knew that ILT could produce pastors because we have from the beginning been blessed with great students and a renowned faculty. However, because we are not a LCMS, ELCA or Wisconsin Synod seminary, we don't have an already established market for students studying to be pastors. As our Wikepedia page says, we do prepare pastors for the Canadian Association of Lutheran Congregations, the Augsburg Lutheran Churches, Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC) and the North American Lutheran Church (NALC).  We are happy to have such important work to do. 

However, other seminaries compete with us, particularly within the LCMC and the NALC.  While we believe we have the deepest program for students in these two church bodies, our program is quite traditional, with heavy doses of Biblical Theology, History of Theology, Systematic and Pastoral Theology.  It takes time to achieve an ILT education and not everybody wants to take the time, or perhaps has the time, to go through a program like ours. But I believe that our age demands more deeply prepared pastors than has perhaps been the case in the past.  Accordingly, we shall always serve these constituencies, and we shall always try to grow our ministry programs.  

To really effect change in the contour of Lutheran theology in North America, we would need to train perhaps 1,000 pastors over the next 10 years. 1,000 very well-educated pastor-theologians who would take very seriously the traditional truth claims of theology would likely alter the course of the church bodies we serve and the North American Lutheran traditions from which they were born.  ILT's Christ School of Theology will always take seriously the task of raising up the next generations of Lutheran pastors, and we hope to train 1,000 pastors -- though to do so in 10 years would demand that more markets become open to us. 

From the beginning, however, ILT has had another task, a task parallel to that of raising up the next generation of Lutheran pastors.  As I wrote already in 2007, we must raise up the next generations of Lutheran professors and teachers.  We must tend to our theological traditions theologically.  We need people involved in an effort that will issue in the making of a new class of theologians, theologians who know the the great Christian deeply as it has been understood by the Lutheran Confessions, people who have a profound grasp of the contemporary cultural and intellectual horizon and who can adroitly relate this tradition to the contemporary horizon.  

From the beginning we have created opportunities in ILT for advanced study, but now we are experiencing something at ILT we could maybe not have expected 17 years ago.  Although I knew that ILT must train future theologians, I did not realize in 2005-06, the degree to which God would bless our efforts at building a real theological institute.  

The last three years have shown very strong growth in our post-M.Div programming: the STM, the Doctor of Ministry, and especially the PhD.  People are seeking us out to study because they trust us to allow them to encounter the great texts of the tradition in creative and fruitful ways.  We don't tell the students that the great texts of the tradition must be avoided because they are not sufficiently sensitive to issues of class, sex, race, orientation, etc.  We are not deeply suspicious of the western canon as some are.  Paraphrasing Barth, we believe that we should take the presuppositions of that canon at least as seriously as our own.  Since we trust the tradition, we encourage our students to engage it deeply. 

What does ILT's Christ School want to be when it grows up?  While I cannot predict exactly what the Christ School will look like in fifty years, I do hope that I know what it will mean to be the Christ School then.  To be the Christ School of theology is to take very seriously the Holy Scriptures and the traditions of interpreting those Scriptures.  To take these Scriptures seriously means that this texts are not something of the past, but living and breathing documents of today, documents which engage us and open for us possibilities of our being. God's grace is, after all, something he dispenses each and every day, even as we living within the paradigms of the contemporary intellectual and cultural horizon.  Simply put, the documents confront us with the very question of salvation, the question that separates human beings from the beasts below them and the angels above, the question that will always remain orthogonal to the concerns of AI and the "machining of our culture."  

The Christ School of Theology is growing rapidly, particularly at the D.Min and PhD levels.  How big might we be next year?  If the trends I am seeing continue, we will have between 30-35 PhD students studying in the fall of 2023,  20-25 D.Min students, and 10-15 STM students.  This means that 60-75 of our students next fall will likely be doing advanced work in theology.  

We celebrate this! It is a God thing! The students are coming from almost all of the Lutheran traditions and beyond these traditions as well.  Our ATS headcount of 96 in the fall of 2022 could see another 15% increase next fall.  We are building the Christ School of Theology not by watering down who we are, but by embracing it the more deeply.  We are not a divinity school, but a flesh-and-blood Lutheran seminary dedicated to taking seriously Lutheran truth claims.  In a time in which seminaries are shrinking, ours is growing.  

I have been discussing here our seminary and graduate school and have not addressed our undergraduate school, Christ College. Nor have I talked about ILT's library and all of the publishing planned to flow from it.  These demand separate posts.  Here I have simply wanted to remind all what it means to be the Christ School of Theology.  We live the commitment to our heritage while at the same time being wholly vulnerable to our intellectual and cultural horizon.  This way of living is, we think, what the theology of the Cross is all about.  

Sunday, April 24, 2022

ATS Fall Headcount and FTE for Lutheran Institutions and an Update on Progress at Institute of Lutheran Theology

It is time for my yearly update on the growth of the Institute of Lutheran Theology with respect to Lutheran Seminaries in North America. 

ILT had a combined headcount of 101 in the F 2021 and a FTE of 81.26. The graduate school alone, Christ School of Theology, had a headcount of 79 with an FTE of 68.72.  This places ILT in ninth place in size among the 21 Lutheran seminaries. Below are the numbers for the fall of 2021, with the first number reporting headcount and the second in parenthesis giving the student FTE. ATS schools numbers are easiest to find, and I must confess to almost guessing on some of the other institutions.   

Of real interest is that the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary is now ATS accredited and claiming to have a FTE and headcount of 174. This would make it the sixth largest Lutheran institution in North America. 

ILT's Christ School of Theology is beginning the process of ATS accreditation, having had its first ATS visit in February. I am very optimistic the partnership we will have with ATS going forward. 

  • Concordia Seminary (LCMS) 603 (377)
  • Luther Seminary (ELCA): 476 (330)
  • Concordia Theological Seminary (LCMS): 307 (217)
  • Warburg Seminary (ELCA): 231 (198)
  • United Lutheran Seminary (ELCA): 342 (184)
  • Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary (WELS): 174 (174) 
  • Martin Luther University (ELCIC): 134 (110)
  • Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago (ELCA): 129 (103) 
  • INSTITUTE OF LUTHERAN THEOLOGY: 101 (81.26), 79 (68.72) grad school alone
  • Trinity School of Ministry (where the NALS is housed): 152 (65)
  • Lutheran Theological Southern (ELCA): 57 (46.3)
  • Trinity Seminary (ELCA): 43 (35)
  • Bethany Theological Seminary (Brethren): 55?
  • Pacific Lutheran (ELCA): 49 (40)
  • Lutheran Brethren Seminary: 40?
  • Free Lutheran Bible College: 25?
  • ALTS (AALC): 25??
  • Bethany Lutheran Theological Sem (ELS): 16?
  • Concordia Lutheran Ontario (LCC): 19 (14)
  • LTS Saskatoon (ELCIC): 17 (11)
  • Concordia Lutheran Edmonton (LCC): 7 (7). 
  • Sunday, February 25, 2018

    So the Institute of Lutheran Theology Has Accreditation -- What's Next?


    From Whence We Have Come

    On February 23, 2017, Comptroller Leon Miles and I received on behalf of the Institute of Lutheran Theology (ILT) the Certificate of Accreditation from the Association of Biblical Higher Education (ABHE).  We did the process quickly, having been granted formal applicant status in 2016, candidacy in 2017 and now initial accreditation in 2018.  ABHE has been wonderful to work with.  They have been good friends and helping neighbors for a young institution like ILT, coaching us to up our game in every facet of institutional life, and giving appropriate feedback along the way.

    Accreditation by the ABHE means that ILT is recognized as an accredited institution by both the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and the United States Department of Education.  Furthermore, since CHEA recognizes all graduate programming ABHE accredits all the way through the Ph.D., CHEA will recognize all ILT graduate programming as well through the Ph.D.

    It has been quite a journey for the fledgling institution that began life as a "House of Studies."  The Preamble of the "Proposal of the Lutheran Theological House of Studies Task Force" that I authored and delivered to the 2006 WordAlone Convention in Golden Valley, MN, sought to respond to the directive of the 2005 Convention to "appoint a task force to develop a plan and proposal to establish a 'Lutheran Theological House of Studies' using the gifts of theological teachers employing the scriptural hermeneutic of the Lutheran Reformation. "  I led the Task Force consisting initially of WordAlone President Jaynan Clark, WordAlone Board Chair John Beem, WordAlone Executive Director Mark Chavez, WordAlone staff member Rev. Randy Freund, and WordAlone Treasurer Irv Aal.

    The Task Force Proposal actually specified much of what has become the Institute of Lutheran Theology.  It spoke of the need for the school to have "critical distance" from the seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) if it was going to be able to offer a prophetic voice within the ELCA context. It specified that the theological house of studies must have full curricular autonomy, and that it must be institutionally independent and academically accredited.   Having just acquired initial institutional accreditation, it is interesting to quote the Proposal on the question of accreditation.  So much of what ILT has done was clearly specified in the 2006 document.  Here is what I wrote then: 
    "Probably the most important question as to the nature of any educational institution is whether or not it should be accredited.  Our task force has concluded that the challenges are so great in the present ELCA educational context that only an institution having strong academic qualifications can address them.  It is our sense that we are faced with a “confessional crisis” within North American Lutheranism, and that we owe it to our Savior, and to our Lutheran tradition, to offer an attractive vehicle by which to train future pastors and perpetuate the Lutheran confessional tradition.  Accreditation does three things:  1) It provides an external motivation to build academic excellence; 2) It provides increased opportunities for students; 3) It symbolizes to all that taking the Confessions seriously does not mitigate taking academics seriously.

    Firstly, the very nature of external accreditation demands that our house of studies will have an adequate research library and fully qualified faculty.  While we might have good intentions in building excellence into a non-accredited house of studies, the natural discontinuities of temporal life make it difficult to achieve academic excellence in the long-term without institutionalizing external accreditation demands.  Accreditation implements externally our internal demand for excellence and keeps us honest long-term when hiring faculty and acquiring educational resources.

    Secondly, being accredited allows greater student flexibility and opportunity.  Students can transfer in and out of accredited programs.  Each is treated fairly in accordance with objective standards developed and monitored by the accrediting agency (ATS).  In addition, accreditation grants greater flexibility for people studying at different schools and seminaries.  In accredited programs there can be certain assumptions about standard courses that are not found in non-accredited curricula.  Preparation for becoming a pastor is more “seamless” when there is a general program of preparation clearly defined, whose various parts can, to some degree, be gotten in different places.  Moreover, an accredited house of studies allows students to prepare not only to fill pastoral pulpits, but also be educated to be teachers in the church.  We wish to nurture an academic competency in teaching and relating Lutheran confessional theology within the marketplace of ideas.  It is our hope to offer advanced academic opportunities for highly motivated students.  We hope not only to train pastors for the future, but also to train teachers of those pastors.  While we could possibly train pastors short-term on a non-accredited basis, we cannot educate teachers of pastors.  

    Thirdly, accreditation symbolizes the consonance within our Lutheran tradition of confession and academic competence.  Lutheran theology was born in the university. The “new theology” at Wittenberg was debated in academic halls and written about in scholarly tracts and books.  It is a university-bred theology that sought to be captive to the Word alone.  We live in a time in which the pastor often serves congregations with members more educated than she or he is.  In an environment in which the very plausibility of the Christian worldview is up for grabs, we need educated pastors who know the intellectual terrain of the various disciplines, and who are able and willing to give an account of that which lies within them.  Thus it is manifestly important that future pastors have good libraries, great professors, and an intellectually stimulating campus environment, precisely the characteristics of accredited programs."
    While there are certain discontinuities between the vision cast above and what actually developed -- for instance, we never did pursue ATS accreditation because of their strictures years ago against delivering the majority of a curriculum through video-conferencing -- much remains as true now as twelve years ago, especially these three assertions:
    • Accreditation provides an external motivation to build academic excellence.
    • Accreditation offers increased opportunities for students.
    • Accreditation symbolizes to all that taking the Confessions seriously does not mitigate taking academics seriously. 
    The last point is particularly important.  I wrote then about an environment in which "the very plausibility of the Christian worldview is up for grabs," and the profound need for "educated pastors who know the intellectual terrain of the various disciplines."

    Data from Pew shows how quickly the decline in Christianity is happening and how profound the challenges are.  Between 2007 and 2014 the Christian share of the [US] population fell from 78.4% to 70.6%.  This is a precipitous drop that cannot, in my opinion, be stemmed simply by excellent Law/Gospel sermons being preached to dwindling numbers of folks in the pews.  Pastors of the future are going to need wise heads as well as strong hearts, because they will need to deal with the reestablishment and the perpetuation of the Christian plausibility structure itself.  Such pastor theologians will clearly require "good libraries, great professors, and an intellectually stimulating campus environment," exactly the characteristics we have designed into ILT.

    To Where We Shall Go

    The Institute of Lutheran Theology has a graduate school and a certificate school.  Its graduate school faculty has seven members, its certificate school faculty has four, and there are well over a dozen adjunct faculty serving both schools.  Within the graduate school, students are designated as follows:
    • Open Studies
    • Masters of Arts in Religion
    • Masters of Divinity  
    • Masters of Sacred Theology
    • Doctor of Ministry 
    While all of these programs are excellent, none really get at the central task of the future: The reestablishment and perpetuation of the Christian plausibility structure itself.  How can this be done and who in Lutheran circles is attempting such a thing?  Is it not hubris to think that one can in any way be engaged in the establishment and perpetuation of Christian plausibility?  Is not the apologetic task a thing of the past, something we did once before these post-modern days?

    I do not think so.  In fact, I believe that what is needed in Lutheran circles is a Ph.D. that produces deeply-educated men and women who know well the theological tradition, the intellectual and cultural horizon, and how to relate the tradition to the horizon in ways that make legitimate truth-claims.

    The ILT Faculty Senate passed on January 19, 2018, a Ph.D. program that defines program learning outcomes, admission requirements, program concentrations, language requirements, qualifying exams, a course of study, comprehensive examinations, and a process for making a thesis proposal and writing and defending a dissertation.

    ILT's proposed Ph.D. will offer concentrations in Old Testament, New Testament, Philosophical Theology, Historical Theology, Systematic Theology, and Christian Ethics.  The proposal calls for a minimum of 45 credits with 12 dedicated to the thesis proposal and writing, three to a methodology course, with the rest of the credits coming from 500 level courses, independent reading, writing and presenting an article at an academic conference, an article in a peer-reviewed journal, an article in an academic book, the translation of an academic book, or serving as a teaching assistant.

    Students will normally take three qualifying exams, with one or more able to be waived if a student already has a STM from ILT.  The qualifying exams will be tailored for each concentration, e.g, Biblical theology, historical and systematic theology, or philosophical theology and ethics.  When the exams are satisfactorily concluded the student automatically becomes a candidate for the Ph.D.

    The four comprehensive exams are all closed-book with a maximum of one week between them.  Students must present a proposal for their exams to their department head.  Only one of the four exams can be in the dissertation area.  When the student passes the exams, they begin in earnest the dissertation phase of their program. 

    The video-conferencing technology ILT has used since its inception will work very well for bringing in external exam and thesis readers.  Instead of the student defending his thesis in a public hall where only local scholars are available, he or she will defend on-line where some of the greatest scholars in the world can be called together.  

    There are challenges, of course.  More physical books will be needed in our library, and more digitized on-line books and serials must be made available to students.  But the requisite idea is present: We will develop from a school dedicated to achieving academic respectability to a school of real academic excellence, a school where the theological task is continually engaged, a school with the academic competence to think deeply and perhaps conclude, as I did in 2006, that the problem for theology today is our continuing penchant for Descartes' problem and the Kantian trajectory that ultimately issued from it.

    As I said then, it is not that ontology recapitulates epistemology, but that epistemology recapitulates ontology.  Our present moment requires that we abandon the prejudice to locate the being of God through a profound introspection of human experience and cognition.  We must instead discern God where God might be found, in a Being whose be-ing is outside of human be-ing, in a Being whose be-ing is at issue primordially for it, in a Being whose be-ing called from eternity all being, in a Being whose be-ing is to be the eternal Savior of us all, a be-ing whose Spirit works faith and grace within those whom the Spirit pleases.

    Friday, November 24, 2017

    The Institute of Lutheran Theology -- A Brick House?

    The Institute of Lutheran Theology (ILT) will celebrate its ten year birthday soon.  It was in December of 2007 that ILT acquired agency, that is, the property of being able to act and being able to be acted upon. The actual life of ILT began when it became a non-profit corporation.  Having gained this property, it soon acted to receive its 501 c3 status, acquiring this in March of 2008.

    As an agent, ILT has been able to do many things: It early on offered courses to congregations, and began in the fall of 2009 to offer courses to those preparing to become pastors and church workers. By 2010 it had defined the core degrees it would offer: the Masters of Divinity, the Masters of Arts, and the Masters of Sacred Theology.  (It later added the Doctor in Ministry.)

    Since its very inception ILT has raised funds for operations and charged tuition for its courses.   As an agent, ILT can and does own property and can and has taken on commitments and obligations.  As an agent, ILT is a financial actor with a financial history.  Like any person, some years of its life have been more challenging than others, some years better than others.  As an agent, ILT has exhibited behaviors, has had dispositions toward behaviors, and has acquired a reputation.  As an agent, ILT has been working to achieve institutional recognition from its institutional peers; it has toiled to become accredited.  Agency is the necessary condition of accreditation.

    While all of this may seem obvious, so much confusion exists in the the present post-modern Lutheran context that many no longer grasp this clearly.  Institutions purporting to train pastors arise, declaring that they can accomplish such training while outsourcing to others either content delivery or degree conferral or both.  The reason for such outsourcing is obvious: To found and develop a new institution that will itself achieve accreditation is very difficult.  It takes a long time, is expensive, and often seems to be irrelevant to the actual task of educating students.  Why not simply open up a room within the Adobe Connect platform and have one pastor teach another?

    There were once three little pigs.  One worked a brief time and built a house of straw, the second worked longer and produced a house of sticks, and the third worked a very long time, finally finishing his house of bricks.  When the wolf came, he could easily blow down the house of straw.  Moreover, with effort, he could flatten the house of sticks.  No matter how hard he tried, however, he was unable to blow down the house of bricks.  The house of bricks outlived the wolf whom, as you might remember, was boiled alive in the waters at the bottom of the brick house's chimney.

    ILT has spent the last ten years preparing for accreditation.  It has created a finance and business office, an institutional advancement office, an office of academic affairs, an office of student affairs, and office of financial aid, an office of chaplain and educational ministry, an office of library and informational services, an office of assessment and measurement, an office of technology and technological support, and an office of public relations, publications, and donor development.  It has produced countless handbooks for students, faculty, staff, departmental offices, and its board of directors.  It has collected, collated and interpreted information from constituents, students, alumni, faculty, staff and its Board of Directors.  It has written detailed business and strategic plans, written and implemented assessment plans, built and implemented budgets, and received unqualified financial audits.  Each year that it exists the agent known as ILT has acted so as to grow stronger and wiser.   While accreditation is neither necessary nor sufficient for quality education in the classroom, it is essential if one is to create an institution that can survive the tempests of the coming years.

    Since its birth, the Institute of Lutheran Theology has wanted to be a house of bricks.  Early on it realized that outsourcing its education to others or using the accreditation of others was like building a house of straw or sticks.  Difficulties arise, the wolf comes, and one's house is no longer.  Who knows if the institution to which one is outsourcing or the institution whose accreditation one is using will survive, or will have the desire to perpetuate the relationship initially established?   Early on it realized that it could not locate at another institution and with integrity call itself an autonomous and accredited school.  How could it control curriculum if the majority of the courses are delivered by the faculty of another institution who have their own agendas and institutional mission?

    The Institute of Lutheran Theology has sought from the beginning to be independent, autonomous, and accredited.  It understood early on that this meant that it would have to take the long view, and slowly and surely develop an institution capable of existence into the next century and beyond.  Brick houses can last a very long time.  It has been the ardent desire of the Institute of Lutheran Theology to be around for a very long time.

    Why is this?  Is it for the glory of ILT and its founders? 

    No.  Early on it became obvious to us that the challenges to the perpetuation of the Lutheran confessional tradition were so great, that only an institution with financial stability, academic rigor, and institutional longevity could hope to address them.  However, what we do at ILT we do humbly; we stand under the Cross.   But make no mistake: In order to stand under the Cross at God's right-hand demands considerable left-hand institutional development.  ILT needs institutional girth in order to be a faithful, humble witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And it is for this that we exist.