A handful of students in Rochester, New York, may well be prototypical of one way the church will train Episcopalians for ministry in the future. “We’re going to have to have some alternative delivery systems,” said Diocese of Atlanta Bishop Neil Alexander, who heads the House of Bishops Task Force on Theological Education.
Given changing enrollments and challenged finances, alternatives already in place involve distance learning and partnerships among the 11 Episcopal Church-affiliated seminaries and with other theological institutions.
For instance, four people ”“ and a few others “who are dipping their toes into the water” ”“ are enrolled in the new Certificate of Anglican Studies Program at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (CRDS), said the Rev. Denise Yarborough, program director. They eventually will receive master of divinity degrees from the school, but their certificates in Anglican studies will come from the program run jointly with General Theological Seminary (GTS), the Episcopal Church-affiliated seminary downstate, and the Diocese of Rochester. Funding for the program comes largely from the diocese, which saw the need for continued access to local theological education when Bexley Hall, another Episcopal Church-affiliated seminary, decided in March 2008 to close its satellite campus in Rochester.
“alternate delivery systems”?
aka clergy as guided missiles.
it certainly cannot be any worse than the educational system we have in place at most seminaries . . .
If non-believers can teach in seminaries, why have them. Anglican studies, psychology, and humanism can be taught by anyone.
There was an effort at one time from within St. James Anglican to initiate a west coast orthodox Anglican theological training institute, hopefully in league with one of the Orange County, California colleges: Biola University or (my Alma Mater) Vanguard University. A series of Anglican courses would have been added to the curricula available, with a 3-year degree offered in the Anglican ‘flavor.’ Seemed like a good idea at the time.
Bexley Hall was founded at Kenyon College in Ohio but moved some years ago to be part of the Rochester consortium. In my years with the General Board of Examining Chaplains Bexley used to have the smallest number of candidates for the General Ordination examination. The last I heard Bexley had moved to Columbus, Ohio, with Trinity Lutheran seminary. Bexley had some good faculty but few students.
No mention of Nashotah, Sewanee, Trinity or Virginia. Hmmm. As I understand it, Trinity, Virginia and Sewanee are the three largest seminaries serving the Episcopal Church (in that order). Yes, Trinity probably has more students from the new province than the older one–but likewise, CDSP, GTS, etc have also students from traditions other than TEC.
ENS lost our address. 🙂
Nashotah offers an excellent distance learning program, a new Doctor of Ministry program, the excellent MDiv residential program and STMs, and all with orthodox content. It is in a companion relationship with St Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary, and Sacred Heart School of Theology (a RC seminary in suburban Milwaukee). It has as many students from the Episcopal Church as it does from the whole range of other Anglican jurisdictions, and it is a wonderful place for formation. Can you tell I am a member of the board of trustees? Our trustees include a wide range of membership within the Episcopal Church and outside it, and all of us are committed to faithful preparation of candidates to serve the Church. Visit http://www.nashotah.edu to find out more; better yet visit.
The TEC alternate universe requires alternate delivery systems.
The comments here are rather shortsighted, focused as they are upon particular institutions rather than challenges which face all seminaries and theological colleges — the rising cost of residential education plus the possibilities offered by the variety of communications systems there are today. Some of the finest alternative delivery theological education actually comes from some of the more conservative seminaries (Asbury, for example).
The economic crisis has punched huge holes in education budgets of all kinds, but especially within the context of the churches, which then forces us to explore other options. At Ridley Hall in Cambridge we are a traditional residential Anglican evangelical theological college, and we believe in the value of residential education for formation of men and women to serve God in ordained leadership. However, we recognize that funding pressures are going to be enormous in the years ahead and we have to be prepared to innovate.
We also recognize that the notion of a seminary preparing folks for leadership and then sending them out to serve is nonsensical unless it is backed up by the very best continuing education and lifelong learning. Ridley has never really gotten into this before, but we are heading hard in that direction, and this will, of course, be a valuable income stream. In addition, we, like other seminaries, have several in-house institutes that serve the church in a variety of ways such as being a voice for Christ in the context of the business world, and enriching prayer and the spiritual life. These, too, become streams of income.
Online and alternative deliveries cannot work for everything. My wife lives here in Cambridge, England, and teaches online for Middle Tennessee State University. She has no problems teaching Latin and Comparative Literature online, but French language, her main academic string, is not something she can do, although French literature is possible. Some teaching online is actually more effective in cyberspace than the classroom, and we need to think in these terms for theological education, other stuff — like developing a personal discipline of prayer, for example, require incarnational approaches which only residential seminaries can offer.
I guess that old saw from Derek Bok, former President of Harvard, is worth quoting, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” If you think education is important for the leadership of a healthy church, then it is important to give financial support to your seminaries.
An alternative to the zeitgeist as “Gospel” might work better … .
Azusa Pacific University just outside of Los Angeles has a Master of Divinity program with an Anglican Studies emphasis. Also, Bethel Seminary in San Diego offers an Anglican emphasis. Both institutions offer fairly flexible options on taking classes.
As usual, Richard Kew is right on the mark. The issues are precisely cost, time commitment to traditional three-year residential programs (especially with older ordinands whose lives are more complicated than earlier generations of young ordinands fresh from college). The attractiveness to bishops and candidates of Anglican studies courses are a variety of institutions is testimony to this fact.
What is being lost is intentional formation in the “atmosphere” of Anglicanism; we are trading it for education without the formation that is best in communities of common purpose.
However, the cost of seminary education in the traditional model is nothing compared to the cost of trying to keep half of the Episcopal Churches in this country with fewer than ASA of 69 open. Talk about a challenge. That inescapable factl will lead to new approaches to parish/congregational ministry faster than the cost of three years at seminary.
I feel a need to respond to Branford’s post, which I trust I can do without seeming to defensive or partisan. First, let me come clean and say that I am a faculty member at Nashotah House (NT and Greek) and the Academic Dean. I was for some time an adjunct at Bethel Seminary and was a full-time member of the faculty at Asbury Seminary for five years before coming to Nashotah House. I am an Episcopalian and a lay person.
While it is true that numerous seminaries are marketing “Anglican studies” programs, one needs to become clear about what this means. Bethel Seminary is a seminary of the Baptist General Conference, and by by-laws all of the faculty members must belong to Baptist General Conference churches. They have some excellent faculty members, some of whom are dear friends, and I am proud of my several associations with that seminary. But let’s be clear that whatever sort of “Anglican emphasis” they might offer, the courses are not taught by the regular faculty members; the institution has no Anglican ethos — quite rightly; and the seminary-sponsored worship will not be Anglican in character.
This is just one example of what I find to be a perplexing trend among my fellow orthodox and conservative Anglicans — that they are choosing “Anglican studies” at seminaries generally ill-equipped to offer it while Trinity and Nashotah offer a genuinely and thoroughly Anglican theological and spiritual formation with a strong emphasis on Scripture and the historic faith for the sake of preparing mature and competent clergy committed to advancing the gospel.
The issues of relocation and expense are real, to be sure, but it is surprising how often I hear of would be Anglican seminarians relocating to baptistic or pan-evangelical seminaries without having given Nashotah or Trinity a serious look. I’m quite sure that part of the problem is that ware have succeeded in being a well kept secret (!), but there is also a problem with prospective students assuming that any seminary that has a program or marketing material with the word “Anglican” in it is offering something meaningfully Anglican, when, in fact, that is not always the case.
Meanwhile, I should add, that for students unable to relocate, Nashotah House’s distance learning program is the best model of such a program that I have seen (I have taught 20+ distance learning courses for four different seminaries and studied numerous other programs.) Every course requires a week-long intensive on our Nashotah campus in addition to the reading, writing and online interactions. More courses in the program are taught directly by full-time residential faculty members of Nashotah House than any other program I am aware of — that is, rather than by adjuncts. When it comes to distance learning seminary programs, buyer beware! They are not all the same. Some are glorified correspondence courses in which the grading and course management is turned over to under-qualified seminary student assistants. And as much as I concur with Richard Kew’s helpful comments, I would not trade Nashotah House’s “distance” education for Asbury’s, though I believe Asbury does it much better than most seminaries. It is also considerably more expensive than Nashotah House’s program per credit, even though they do not offer a direct residential experience with a live professor as part of the distance course experience.
So, please, when you are considering seminary options or helping someone discern the best alternatives, make sure that you are aware of what you might be missing by choosing what appears to be the most convenient instead of what might be the superior educational and formational opportunity.
Garwood P. Anderson
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Assoc. Prof. of New Testament and Greek
Nashotah House
Thank you for your report, Professor Anderson. You folks are doing God’s work.
When I sought a religious education, I had already given up on Anglicanism (after 50 years inside it)–although God had not so given up on it. I fled to the Assemblies of God, where I did my undergrad work at night school, then switched to a night job to study for my Master’s by day.
I’m afraid distance learning would not have done it for me. I found the personal contact with fellow students and Godly professors and pastor-professors to be one of the most valuable parts of my education, even without the chapel requirements for the daytime undergrads.
Then God sent me back to my Anglican roots, where I’m now a Deacon in a [url=http://www.staidanlindisfarne.org/]Liturgical/Evangelical/Charismatic[/url] communion of the Convergence movement, living within walking distance of Trinity. In spite of the witness of Trinity and Nashotah, I still feel that Anglicans need a west coast orthodox academic presence, and I am not sure that Azusa Pacific fills the bill.
Thanks again,
[url=http://resurrectioncommunitypersonal.blogspot.com/]The Rabbit[/url].
#15, Rabbit:
Your point about a west coast presence is fair. Just for what it is is worth, when we speak of our “distance” program at Nashotah House, each course includes 35 hours of on-site course contact time with the professor during a residential week, attending our twice-daily chapel services during that week, eating meals together in our refectory, and generally hanging out with the cohort. In this setting, substantive and sometimes even close relationships are formed among the students. So the contact time among students and between students and professors is central to the program. We have no intention of doing “distance” learning in which that residential experience is not a part of the program, where the community is merely “virtual.”
Thanks for the affirming comments.
Garwood Anderson
#14 – Garwood Anderson – you are correct about Bethel. But I think it’s telling that schools are emphasizing the ability to continue studies more on the student’s own timeframe. I know clergy that have completed Bethel and clergy that have completed Nashotah House. Those from Nashotah rave about the immersion into a resident program and how that really builds community for them, as well as the commitment to full-time studies and the deep friendships they have made. Those that have completed studies at Bethel have done so primarily for financial reasons – they couldn’t afford the time to take three years in a residential program or the move so far away. So I don’t know the answer for someone who feels called but literally can’t go through a three-year residential program (which everyone I’ve talked to admits is the best way).