If I were a seminary president...

Interesting read.

If I were a seminary president I would focus on quality theological education in a variety of formats (traditional, online, hybrid). Modern higher education must recognize that students do "shop" and I would want my seminary to do what it could to attract the best possible students. I would also work to raise the standards of seminary work by doing away with "introduction" courses. I would require that intro course such as New Testament Introduction, Church History, and Systematic Theology be done at the undergraduate level (i.e...pre-reqs). These courses would be replaced with advanced, graduate level courses in textual, historical, and theological areas. Of course the seminary would offer the intro courses at the college level (thus, students would not have to go to a different school). I would also require all graduate students (MDiv, MA, ThM, etc) to complete a graduate level master's thesis.

Martin.

 

==I would treat the intro courses as remedial or prerequisite courses. The person you speak of would come to the seminary, take those intro classes through the undergraduate program during their first semester (or two), then move into the graduate program. I base this on the model established by "secular" colleges/universities. For example, if you want to enter a MD or nursing program you must have certain prerequisites. Thus, the person you speak of could still enter the program but would need to finish the prerequisites first. By following this model, when the seminary student actually enter the seminary masters program they are true graduate students on par with graduate students at any university. The result would be that the MA or MDiv program could focus on advanced courses instead of covering the basics.

The students would get "college credit" for the prerequisite courses but those courses would not count towards their MA or MDiv. Again that is the same idea behind making nursing students take microbiology before they enter the nursing program.

==That is the current model and there is nothing wrong with that model. After all, I believe both of us went through that model. I'm just speculating on ways to make seminary work more like actual graduate studies. I'm sure my ideas have some problems that would need to be worked out if put in place in an actual seminary setting. However I think the idea of advancing the seminary masters to a higher level is a good one even if it is done in a different way than I propose.


Things have been going fine on my end. Staying busy as usual. Hope things are going well for you and yours.

Martin.