EPISCOPAL SEMINARY OF THE SOUTHWEST FACES KAIROS MOMENT

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
1/10/2007

The Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest (ETSS) faces an uncertain future with declining student enrollment, a significant deficit, and failure to address its resources will result in the death of the institution.

The Rev. Dr. Philip Turner interim Dean and President of the Seminary, made his state-of-the-seminary comments to the Board of Trustees recently, and said unless ETSS embraced a 10 to 15-year future, the seminary would fold. "I can think of one that is about to collapse and two that were forced to merge and become a small program within a much larger institution," he told the Trustees.

Looking at the bottom line, Turner said the seminary could handle 100 full-time and 50 part-time students, but current enrollment this year was only 104. "We are way too small to survive in the competitive market we now face - 11 seminaries and 600 students in the system." Turner pointed out that its seminaries faced stiff competition from such recognized Episcopal seminaries and divinity schools like Duke and Harvard, Princeton and Perkins.

"I draw from these numbers the conclusion that we have to find a way to grow and become a major draw or we will become an also-ran - the second or third choice among the members of a small, even shrinking, pool of applicants." Turner said the seminary would have to compete "head to head" or face the consequences.

Turner told the Trustees that they had to, within the next five years have a program that matches other institutions, but urged them to consider closer ecumenical links with Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and Lutheran Seminary programs in the Southwest. He also urged links with the new Dept. of Religious Studies at UT.

Financially, Turner said the seminary needed a more adequate endowment for the support of scholarships, and faculty/staff salaries. "The sad fact is that The Episcopal Church now seems unable to support theological education through the resources of dioceses and parishes. What this means is that we lose students because other institutions can out-bid us. It also means we that we have too few administrative staff and we have an over-worked faculty."

Turner said the institution could not sustain the present situation indefinitely. He said the seminary did not have adequate housing for married students who have no children; the library was too small and too old, and more adequate space was needed to house administration. He said $3 million was needed, but only $1 million had been raised to date towards the Rather House project.

Turner said ETSS needed a board that had the capability of securing a better financial base for the institution.

"ETSS stands at a watershed in its history. If it looks ahead with confidence and thinks with boldness, it will become a powerhouse for The Episcopal Church, this area of the country and the Diocese of Texas. If it does not, it will fade."

In August of 2005 Dr. Turner got a letter from an alumnus the Rev. Gene Bogan (with two degrees from ETSS) asking him how he would deal with the "embedded evil" at the seminary which allows same-sex cohabiting. Turner wrote back saying he would make every effort to exercise godly leadership in this place that Bogan, an orthodox Episcopal priest, got fired in the 60's by his liberal bishop for taking up the civil rights cause and never got reinstated. When VOL spoke with Bogan, he said no changes were made.

The Director of Administration and Registrar of Nashotah House in Nashotah, Wisconsin, an Episcopal Anglo-Catholic seminary reports an upswing in student enrollment. Dr. Carol Klukas told VOL that Nashotah had 60 residential students, 17 in a distance learning program plus a summer program of 15 students. "We have nearly doubled our student intake from 35 students in three years. We could go to 90, but we have more families than we can accommodate on campus." The seminary is also functioning on a sound financial footing.

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