By Jennifer Davis Rash, Special to the Message
NEW ORLEANS – While some Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) seminary leaders are launching new building programs and adding new faculty members, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary officials have found themselves in an opposite position.
Their most recent move was to lay off three professors, move four professors from full-time to part-time status and eliminate six ministry-based faculty positions.
“The core issue we face is that we have more full-time faculty members than our Cooperative Program (CP) income will allow us to support,” New Orleans Seminary President Chuck Kelley told The Alabama Baptist prior to the seminary trustees meeting April 12–13.
“There are two reasons for this,” Kelley said. “First giving to the Cooperative Program is in decline. It has been down for two consecutive years. Indications are it will be down for a third year. … A decline of CP income for the SBC means a smaller CP budget for SBC entities, including New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary,” he explained.
“Second our portion of the SBC operating budget is smaller due to the lingering effect of Hurricane Katrina [which devastated the seminary campus as well as the city of New Orleans in 2005] and the growing desire of students for nonresidential theological education.”
Off-campus students
The percentage of CP funds going to seminaries is based largely on the number of credit hours taken on each seminary’s primary campus, Kelley noted. “From the first year this distinction was made between on-campus and off-campus students, [New Orleans Seminary] has had a far larger number of off-campus students than any other seminary.”
Acknowledging the off-campus option is what many students in the five-state region New Orleans Seminary serves want, Kelley said the percentage of students using that option has jumped from 45 percent prior to Hurricane Katrina to 55 percent today. And this increase has “had a significant effect on the portion of CP funds we receive,” he said.
But even with the cuts, Kelley said, the seminary remains “passionately committed to making quality theological education accessible to any God-called Southern Baptist.”
“With these reductions in the number of full-time faculty, we are able to continue all programs, degrees and delivery systems we now offer, including all of those offered in Alabama,” he said, noting most faculty members, no matter their status, teach off-campus students at some point.
For the 2010-11 year, NOBTS received the third highest percent – 4.29 – of the total 22.16 percent of CP dollars going toward theological education. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., received the largest amount with 4.88 percent.
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, was second with 4.86 percent. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., was fourth with 3.98 percent.
Rounding out the list are Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., with 2.01 percent and Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif., with 1.90 percent of the 22.16 percent of CP dollars going toward theological education.
And out of the top four, the order shakes out about the same when tuition is compared (using the last numbers available, the 2008-09 academic year). The exception is that New Orleans Seminary came in fourth on the amount collected for tuition and fees: $6,156,027.
First was Southern Seminary with $13,093,841 coming from tuition and fees that year. Southwestern Seminary brought in $10,003,303 and Southeastern Seminary collected $6,248,552.
As far as the number of students paying tuition and fees, the 2009-10 numbers showed that only 40 percent of New Orleans Seminary’s 3,740 students were on the main campus. More than 2,200 students attended through one of the extension centers or through online classes.
And while NOBTS has one of the largest doctoral programs of the six SBC seminaries, it also has a large undergraduate and certificate-level student population. In the last academic year, 342 students were in a doctoral program, but almost half of the students – 1,643 – who attended New Orleans Seminary, worked on something other than a seminary degree. The remaining 1,695 were enrolled in traditional master’s level seminary classes.
New Orleans Seminary has 16 extension centers in the Southeast. Alabama has one official extension center, located at The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, and three teaching sites in Athens, Montgomery and Clanton.
New extension center
A second extension center site is to open at Heritage Baptist Church, Montgomery, in the fall.
“We are very excited about partnering with New Orleans Seminary to help equip ministers for more effective ministry,” Pastor Teman Knight said. Knight has taught at the seminary’s extension centers for 20 years and has seen the impact they have locally and globally.
“The extension center allows ministers to continue serving in local ministry and prepare for future ministry,” Night said. “This is such a benefit for our churches because it prevents them from losing valuable leadership in their church while that leader is a student.
“The extension center also allows ministers who would otherwise not be able to attend [seminary to] receive a quality education,” Knight continued. “What they learn and the skills they develop will make our churches stronger.”
Reprinted with permission from The Alabama Baptist.