(Fort Wayne, IN)-Concordia Theological Seminary (CTS), Fort Wayne, has
been
removed from probation by The North Central Association of Colleges and
Schools (NCA) and The Association of Theological Schools (ATS) has
granted a
five-year renewal of accreditation to the institution. Along with these
important decisions, both agencies have removed several negative
notations
previously made about the seminary.
"Concordia Theological Seminary is delighted with this renewal of
accreditation of its program and the removal of six notations. The
people of
the church as well as the faculty and students can rejoice in the
increased
enrollment, increased support and increased missionary zeal-all in the
service of forming compassionate pastors who will confess Christ with
biblical and confessional clarity, " said Dr. Dean O. Wenthe, President
of
CTS. "As president, I extend our thanks to so many of God's people who
have
made this possible," said Dr. Wenthe. "I look forward to the coming
five
years with great confidence in our church and our confessions."
These decisions come after the NCA placed the institution on probation
in
1996 and the ATS, while they did not remove accreditation, did not
reaffirm
it either. Both agencies sited several notations for their decisions.
These
notations included: the governing board does not exercise sufficient
control; has not addressed issues of divisiveness among internal and
external constituents; undercapitalization and current deficit
budgeting
threaten to weaken the program; this institution has not demonstrated
future
financial planning, as required by the standards; library facilities
are
inadequate; the evaluation procedures are insufficiently developed or
implemented in this institution; general tone of the school impairs the
capacity to provide significant theological education and ministerial
training; and administrative mechanisms have not been established to
support
planning efforts and have not implemented a strategic planning process.
These notations have since been removed after an ATS-NCA team visited
the
seminary in March 1998.
In response, the seminary plans to continue to develop, implement, and
articulate an ongoing, systematic and long-term comprehensive
evaluation
plan for all programs, services and personnel.
One of the ways the seminary is accomplishing this task is to build a
new
library on campus. With a tentative groundbreaking date set for Spring
of
2000, the library will be four times the size of the current building
with
70,000 square feet. This will enable the seminary to have a library
that
offers not only all their print collections under one roof, but an
information center that will include on-line and CD-rom resources along
with
computer and distant learning centers. Date for completion is set for
the
Winter of 2,003.