October 14, 2011
By Mary Frances Schjonberg

Saying it must reverse a trend of annual deficits and restructure to meet the changing needs of theological education, the Church Divinity School of the Pacific's board of trustees agreed Oct. 14 to increase and broaden enrollment, increase annual giving and reduce its 11-member faculty.

The seminary has run annual operating deficits for several years. The current fiscal year the deficit is $1.4 million on a $4 million budget. The budget includes the cost of being a member of the Graduate Theological Union, of which CDSP is a founding member.

The trustees' call for increased and broadened enrollment and annual giving will be aided by retaining a recently hired director of student recruitment and adding a chief advancement officer.

Two faculty positions will not be filled when those professors retire. The timing of those retirements has not been determined. The Very Rev. Mark Richardson, dean and president of the Episcopal Church-affiliated seminary, will determine which additional faculty positions will be eliminated. All decisions about the restructuring of the faculty are expected to occur by the end of this academic year, Richardson told Episcopal News Service.

In a prepared statement, Richardson called the decision necessary but "difficult and painful for any organization, and especially for us in this intimate setting of theological education and spiritual formation for ministry."

This is not the first time the school's faculty has been reduced. The school left its New Testament position vacant after the Rev. L. William Countryman resigned two years ago. In addition, the school's non-academic staff has been reduced in recent years.

The trustees also agreed to retain ownership of its entire one-block campus, located just north of the University of California, while seeking additional tenants for the seminary's non-essential space. The school has rented space for years to the Berkeley Geochronology Center.

The four-point plan is the result of 18 months of work by a 17-member task force that included trustees, faculty, alumni, and Diocese of California Bishop Marc Andrus. The task force recruited others to serve on various working groups during its study time.

The plan is meant to be implemented between now and 2016 with the financial goal of reducing the school's annual deficit to a negligible amount or eliminating it entirely, task force chair the Rev. Rodney Davis said Oct. 13 in presenting the group's report to the seminary community.

Students and faculty at that meeting expressed concern about the impact of the plan on the faculty that will remain and on the student body. The Rev. Susanna Singer, CDSP assistant professor of ministry development and director of its doctor of ministry program, told the trustees Oct. 14 that the faculty is concerned about a potential increase in its committee work, student advising and other administrative tasks under the plan.

The task force considered such options as selling most of the campus to increase its endowment, moving out of Berkeley or merging with another seminary.

"We have concluded that that is not the way to enter the future," Richardson said in an interview. "What has not been explored well enough yet and what we are going to aggressively go after is a whole different way of thinking about theological education for ministry in the west [of the country] especially, but really throughout the country. That is a process that really changes up the delivery system and looks at the kinds of degrees and kinds of certificates that people are looking for in order to be able to give some kind of leadership in the church."

CDSP must adapt to the changes people are seeking, "as well as to sustain our basic Master of Divinity program that we're committed to," he said.

The task force's report notes that sale of property and mergers of various kinds "remain as future options" and made clear to the members that "a number of possibilities exist that will assure that the western half of the nation has available to it an Episcopal seminary for the training of future clergy." CDSP and the Seminary of the Southwest are the only Episcopal Church-related seminaries west of the Mississippi River.

Three Episcopal Church-related seminaries – Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts; General Theological Seminary in New York; and Seabury Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois – have sold some or all of their property in recent years.

The faculty reduction comes in anticipation of the creation of a common core faculty with one or more of CDSP's sister schools of the GTU. CDSP will seek formal agreements for sharing faculty, part-time, with its partner schools in the GTU, Richardson said.

The trustees' resolution said that CDSP "will retain full-time faculty essential to deliver the instruction unique to forming ordained ministers for the Episcopal and other Anglican churches."

The loss of faculty will not result in cuts in course offerings, curriculum, degrees or certificates, according Richardson, and the school will actually be adding courses in multicultural studies and interreligious studies.

Richardson said that a 60 percent increase in the number of students enrolling in CDSP's degree and certificate programs this fall, as well as news of what he told Episcopal News Service was a $750,000 gift to its endowment, makes him confident that the goals are attainable.

Thirty-seven new students enrolled in CDSP this September compared with 23 in September 2010, according to a report by school registrar Margo Webster. Fourteen new Master of Divinity degree students enrolled this fall as compared to 11 last fall. The school has 54 full-time equivalent students this fall and the task force's goal is to reach the equivalent of 96 full-time students across all degree programs by 2016, according to CDSP Chief Financial Officer Steve Argyris.

The size of CDSP's faculty compared with its enrollment has become a financial issue, Richardson said. The accepted student-to-faculty ratio for schools such as CDSP is 13 to 1, while CDSP's is about 7.5 to 1, a ratio Richardson called "unsustainable."

While Richardson said CDSP wants to preserve the traditional Master of Divinity degree and use it "as a core from which we determine the kind of faculty we need to teach our theological programs," the school also is more aggressively pursuing what it calls "low-residential programming." The latter involves mostly online education with or without a portion of face-to-face time with instructors and other students, either on campus or elsewhere.

The Master of Divinity degree is pursued by most people seeking ordination and has traditionally been a three-year residential program, regardless of the seminary. However, more and more M.Div. students at many seminaries are not living on campus and are looking to do more of their studies off site.

CDSP's strategic restructuring plan is part of a many-year trend in seminaries across all denominations that are searching for ways to adapt to declining enrollment, changing enrollment and accompanying financial challenges.

Episcopal News Service
The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor/reporter for the Episcopal News Service.