Two Seminaries Approve Plan of Merger
Diocesan Press Service. November 8, 1973 [73242]
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- At its meeting on October 25, the Board of Trustees of the Philadelphia Divinity School approved an Agreement and Plan of Merger for the Philadelphia Divinity School (P.D.S.) and the Episcopal Theological School (E.T.S.) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, recognizing that the following issues must be settled: the name of the new institution; the composition of the Board of Trustees ; questions relating to the P.D.S. real estate; the administrative organization of the new institution; the by-laws of the new institution; the statement of corporate purposes.
The Board appointed a committee consisting of Townsend Munson, President of the Board, Dean Edward G. Harris and two additional trustees, Charles L. Ritchie, Jr., and Bayard H. Roberts, Esq., and empowered this committee to meet with a committee from E.T.S. and to settle the issues listed above.
The Board adjourned its meeting until November 26, at which time, with settlement of the issues noted, the Agreement and Plan of Merger will be signed.
The E. T.S. Board of Trustees took similar action at its meeting on October 15. The merger is planned to go into effect June, 1974, and it is expected that the new institution will be in operation for the academic year starting September, 1974.
The new institution will be located in Cambridge, Mass., on the current E.T.S. site. It will have a new name, a new Board of Trustees and new Articles of Organization. All full-time faculty members and students of the two schools will be included in the formation of the new institution. All assets of P.D.S. and E.T.S. will be transferred to the trustees of the new institution.
It will carry on its educational program in relationships with colleges and universities in the Cambridge-Boston area and with the Boston Theological Institute, an ecumenical association of seven theological schools including Harvard Divinity School, Boston University School of Theology, Andover Newton Theological School, St. John's Seminary of the Archdiocese of Boston, Weston College (a Jesuit seminary), and the Department of Theology of Boston College.
The Boston Theological Institute is involved in ecumenical field education programs, in joint planning for continuing education for clergy and laity, in developing programs in Black Studies and Women's Studies, and in a program of library development.
The new institution will also continue membership in the Episcopal Consortium for Theological Education in the Northeast (Ectene) wherein its aim will be to cooperate closely with the General Theological Seminary in New York City, both in integrating planning of particular programs for theological education and in such actions as would implement such planning.
The coordinated work of the Ectene schools is planned to include such matters as the following: student interchanges; sharing of faculty resources and personnel; joint faculty appointments in appropriate fields; institutes for research, teaching and consulting purposes; workshops in such areas as historical issues, new forms of communication and contemporary problems; a scholarly journal; library resources; a joint doctoral program; continuing education for clergy in the northeastern dioceses of the Episcopal Church both within the institutions and in on-site programs; new approaches in theological education for persons not seeking ordination; and cooperation in field education and clinical pastoral education. The Ectene schools also plan to give careful consideration to developing common efforts in fundraising, alumni relations, publicity, general public relations, recruitment and admissions.
Both P.D.S. and E.T.S. have been committed to a certain aim in theological education. They have traditionally sought not only to train but also to educate, to prepare students for a ministry in which skills, commitment and devotion are informed and enhanced by real theological learning and a habit of critical theological thought. This aim requires for its accomplishment the maintenance of a faculty of high and varied competence. It also requires a setting and a style of teaching which encourage close and open communication among students and teachers.
The two schools have also been convinced that in the present situation of the church there are new tasks to be undertaken in the field of theological education, or at any rate tasks for which no special or systematic provision has been made in the past. The preparation and equipment of persons for a learned ministry of Word and Sacraments must now be seen to involve, in addition to preparation on the first professional degree level, such other enterprises as the continuing education of clergy, the development of lay education, the cultivation of means by which significant research can be encouraged and its results made available in the life of the church through " institutes " engaged in research, teaching and consultation.
At the same time improved preparation in personal and spiritual formation and in the actual practice of ministry is required. These are necessary goals and programs which are largely beyond the reach of a single small seminary functioning alone but which become possible of achievement through the redeployment of resources and the coordination of efforts. This new disposition of seminary resources will thus enable an expansion of the services which seminaries perform through a reorganization to provide a more effective and greater variety of functions.
Our basic concern is enhancing the quality of theological education. Obviously an important subsidiary question is to strengthen the enterprise of theological education financially in the long run. The financial question however is important only as it relates to the basic concern.
It should be noted that each of the schools involved is not acting from weakness but from a position of strength. There have indeed been some operating budget deficits but each school is worth more in absolute terms each year than it has been in the past. The freeing of money from the support of a campus' bricks and mortar so that it may be devoted to new and improved educational programs, together with the pooling of faculty, student, alumni and library resources will enable an increase of educational excellence. Here is a case of institutions seeking to lead from strength in order to achieve greater strength in the conviction that this is good stewardship for the Episcopal Church.