From the Boca Raton News, July 6, 1971:
Divinity schools, like almost everything else during the past two decades, have been in a period of expansion. Now, like almost everything else, they are in a serious financial bind.
The University of Chicago Divinity School [will] have 150 fewer students next [year] than it had two years ago, when the enrollment was 430.
Harvard's Divinity School is planning to cut back on its scholarships and put the money into long-range loans.
At the Union Theological Seminary in New York, tuition has leaped from $800 to $1,800 in five years.
And the Episcopal Church is exploring ways of eliminating six of its 12 seminaries, through mergers if possible.
"All private institutions of higher learning are in trouble, and all religious institutions are in trouble," says Martin Marty [pictured here in a 2007 photo], associate dean of the University of Chicago's Divinity School gloomily. "In the seminaries, both these facts are working against us. We have both feet on banana peels."
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Sometimes it's worth talking about bad examples and "worst practices."Back in the New Year 2009 issue of In Trust, we took on this topic head-on with an article by Rebekah Burch Basinger called "Nipping Trouble in the Bud: When Board Members Behave Badly." (People affiliated with In Trust's member schools can read the article after logging in.)
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Colleges and universities are increasingly turning to innovative solutions and the fast-paced development of new information technologies to trim overhead, maintenance, and staff budgets, while at the same time improving services for a changing student demographic.
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Shared governance is a slippery concept in all of higher education, and it's the source of much misunderstanding, according to an article title "Exactly What Is 'Shared Governance'?" in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education.
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The board's role in accreditation
Most anyone associated with higher education knows minimally that accreditation is an external validation of internal effectiveness. But the extent to which a board should be concerned about this process is variable and at times controversial.
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Forum on Alliances & Mergers
Exploring the idea of partnership with another school?
Learn what all leaders in governance must understand about
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Beginning the process
- Necessary steps and other keys to success
- Possible pitfalls
- Options in partnerships
- The essential role for boards
Forum will be held on December 2, 2009 at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary's campus in North Carolina.
To register, call us at 302-654-7770 or e-mail InTrustForum@intrust.org by October 30.
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