At its February 15 board meeting, the LSTC board of directors met for a fruitful discussion about the seminary’s educational and operational future. The meeting set the stage for an array of forward-looking discussions and decisions that stand to redefine the seminary’s trajectory in the coming years.

In President James Nieman’s opening remarks, he reported on the upcoming accreditation visits from the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) and the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), and the status of Project Starling, LSTC’s new asynchronous learning initiative. Regarding the accreditation visits, Nieman noted that they mark a critical role in the seminary’s future and that preparation for ATS and HLC are in full swing, with draft reports and focused sessions underway underscoring LSTC’s readiness for the esteemed accrediting bodies’ evaluations.

President Nieman also updated the board on the status of LSTC’s new Project Starling initiative, sharing that the Operations Team is engaged in weekly meetings to support a successful launch. Currently, the team’s efforts are concentrated on creating and posting a crucial instructional designer role and planning for Phase 1 of the initiative, which will focus on meeting the needs of TEEM and SAM learners through distance learning modalities. Project Starling aims to shifts the seminary towards a modern, flexible learning model that accommodates diverse range of educational needs and audiences.

The board also reviewed the seminary’s financial status, as presented by by LSTC’s Vice President of Finance and Operations Richard Vivian, and they received a proposed strategic plan initiative presentation from Pastor Erik Christensen who oversees strategic initiative planning at LSTC. 

The plan outlines four strategic initiatives: asynchronous education, the philanthropic campaign, policy review, and strategic staffing. The board aims to provisionally approve the strategic plan by May 2024, underscoring the seminary’s proactive approach to long-term goals and while also taking immediate action steps. This plan involves the identification of leaders for the initiatives, shaping a five-year vision with annual objectives, and establishing a robust annual review process.

Goff, Chairperson and point of contact for board queries, is set to collaborate closely with President Nieman and Pastor Christensen, ensuring that the four strategic initiatives receive the necessary board input and refinement before finalization. 

In committee reports Harry Mueller, chair of the Finance and Operations Committee, referred to the presentation and report from Richard Vivian.

Bridget Jones, chair of the Governance Committee, highlighted the ongoing recruitment efforts for board members, focusing on Northern Illinois, Western Iowa, and Nebraska synods. A proactive approach to committee chair  and officer succession and onboarding was suggested, possibly involving bylaw amendments to formalize the process.

Maryjeanne Schaffmeyer, chair of the Marketing & Fundraising committee, recommended that John Kotovsky be appointed to serve on the Foundation Board of Trustees, which the board approved.

Finally, the Academics & Community committee, led by Kristi Ferguson, addressed faculty housing benefits, and updated admissions enrollment, setting the stage for a full report in the May board meeting.

As LSTC moves towards its 164th commencement and beyond, these developments underscore a period of transformation and commitment to nurturing a community of faith that is responsive to the evolving landscape of theological education.

For more in-depth information on the board’s report and strategic initiatives, visit www.lstc.edu/board.

The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago is hosting a comprehensive evaluation visit for reaffirmation of accreditation by the ATS Commission on Accrediting on February 19-21, 2024. The purpose of this visit is to verify that the school meets all applicable Commission Standards of Accreditation. Comments regarding how well the school meets those standards and/or generally demonstrates educational quality may be sent to accrediting@ats.edu  at least two weeks before the visit. Comments may also or instead be sent in writing to Christine Wenderoth, Accreditation Liaison Officer for LSTC at christine.wenderoth@lstc.edu. All comments will be shared with the onsite evaluation committee.

Dear members and friends of the LSTC community:

As we look forward to the start of the fall semester, I wish to update you on our progress toward completing the fourth floor construction in our new home at 5416 South Cornell Avenue. You likely know that the east side of that floor was “refreshed” in early summer, and several key departments and employees have been working in that space ever since. The larger challenge was the west side of that floor, involving a buildout of around 12,500 square feet according to a design we created together with our architects and planners. Until that side of the floor is finished, we will be sharing office spaces and using alternative locations on CTU’s campus and elsewhere for education, collaboration, worship and social spaces. We are grateful for your patience during these changes and for CTU’s generous assistance in so many ways. Even so, I know we are eager to bring this time of transition to a close.

I am therefore glad and relieved to announce that we seem to be on track to complete the entire fourth floor by the end of September. Through the diligent efforts of our contractor and our project manager and the skillful work of many subcontractors, we hope to have final city inspections for occupancy during the first week of October. New furniture for several spaces will be installed by then, and the furniture we brought from our previous location will be moved in on 5-6 October. Boxes of personal materials (files, books, etc.) from former offices should be moved starting 9 October. This means that Reading Week (16-20 October) will be the opportune time for residents of all offices on the west side to finally move in. Classes will transfer into our new teaching spaces for the last half of the semester, starting 23 October.

Of course, there could be unexpected developments with construction, inspections, or supply chains that delay our moving in, but as of today, the signs are bright that we will meet the schedule I’ve just outlined. More detailed information will follow, but for now, I wanted you to know our likely path for the next two months. For all this, we thank God for endurance, safety, skill, care, and good humor.

James Nieman, PhD
President
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
5416 S. Cornell Avenue, fourth floor
Chicago, IL 60615

At its April meeting, the Executive Committee of the LSTC Board of Directors approved a resolution to establish a Reparations Task Force that will examine and propose a reparations plan for the seminary, beginning in 2023.

The task force includes President James Nieman as support staff, and board members Morgan Gates (task force convener, Terry Goff (board chair) Greg Lewis (board vice-chair), and Kristi Ferguson (immediate past board chair).

Committed to engaging the institution’s stakeholders on this topic, the group will seek input from faculty, staff, students, the Antiracism Taskforce Team, and student organizations. 

In addition to hosting listening sessions with the campus community, the team plans to consult with groups such as Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberty (SOUL), the Hyde Park Historical Society, and other experienced external organizations.

In preparation for this initiative, the seminary’s finance office will also establish a restricted account for financial funding and support dedicated toward reparations. A new website will be launched in the coming weeks to keep the campus community current on the seminary’s progress.

An update on the task force’s progress will be reported at the May meeting of the Board of Directors.

This year’s April 16^th concert honors gospel artist Percy Gray and recipients of the Grover Wright Scholarship and the Rev. Carole A. Burns Scholarship.

Join us in praise on Sunday, April 16^th at 4pm in Augustana Chapel for the 33^rd annual LSTC Gospel Choir Benefit Concert. This year’s theme, God Is My Everything, will bring the LSTC community together in joyful celebration, with a meal to follow.  

Under the direction of Dr. Keith “Doc” Hampton, the concert will feature award- winning gospel composer and producer Percy Gray and will recognize recipients of the Grover Wright Scholarship, established in 1994 to support the education of students of color, and the Rev. Carole A. Burns Scholarship, created in 2004 to support African American women pursuing ministry.  

We are also delighted to announce that this year’s concert will, for the first time, be filmed for public broadcast this upcoming September; this is truly an opportunity to be a part of a unique performance. 

The LSTC Gospel Choir headlines the concert this year sharing musical selections written by Percy Gray. With an alumni base of over 300 and an illustrious history that has included tours of Tanzania and South Africa, the LSTC Gospel Choir has been honored to make its mark in service of LSTC’s global mission.  If you wish to support the Grover Wright Scholarship Fund or the Rev. Carole A. Burns Scholarship Fund, you can click the donate button below or contact Alumni and Congregational Engagement Officer Jessica Houston at jhouston@lstc.edu.

Register

All aboard! This April, a number of religions’ holy days (Ramadan, Passover, Easter, Wesak, Vaisakhi, Ridvan and more) overlap, meaning that many Muslims, Jews, Christians, Baha’i, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and others will simultaneously be observing their holy days. This is an incredible opportunity to come together to educate our communities and shape the public narrative about what it means to live well together amidst our religious and cultural diversity and difference. 

After a sell-out inaugural year, Chicago Theological Seminary, Lutheran School of Theology, American Islamic College, and The Niagara Foundation are sponsoring the SECOND ANNUAL CHICAGO INTERFAITH TROLLEY TOUR and Iftar on April 2, 2023. 

Riding onboard a trolley, we will explore five sacred spaces in North Chicago, learning about their April holy days, as well as the collaborative interfaith work happening in the community. Trolley riders will hear from and visit many different faith-based organizations, including: the first Black church of Evanston: Second Baptist; a social justice and interfaith-centered synagogue: Sukkat Shalom; the beautiful Baha’i Temple of North America, and Northwestern University’s Spiritual Life. The day will end with an interfaith Iftar dinner at sunset. Both the trolley and the Iftar are ticketed events. 

More information can be found here. Registration is now open for the trolley and iftar dinner. Space is limited. Register for Trolley and Iftar here.

The Chicago Interfaith Trolly Tour is grateful to have the following sponsors:

A Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago fosters and deepens relations between Christians and Muslims and builds bridges of mutual understanding, respect and cooperation among people of all faiths. To learn more visit www.lstc.edu 

Welcoming students of all backgrounds, American Islamic College is a Chicago-based institution of higher learning grounded in Islamic values and steeped in Islam’s rich and diverse intellectual and cultural traditions. www.aicusa.edu

At Chicago Theological Seminary, our mission is to educate and inspire the next generation of religious leadership. As a historically Protestant and now multifaith seminary, our vision is to build the beloved community together with commitments to racial and social justice, to gender equality and LGBTQ rights, and to deep interreligious engagement. www.ctschicago.edu

Niagara Foundation strives to promote social cohesion by fostering civic conversations and sustained relationships between people of different cultures and faiths. www.niagarafoundation.org 

For more information, please contact Kim Schultz at kim.schultz@ctschicago.edu, 646-642-6957

Dear members and friends of the LSTC community:

I am pleased to report that we have reached the culmination of our building sale to the University of Chicago. At midnight Thursday, the dozen or so building services we have been responsible for will be terminated, and the university will assume these services in whatever ways they determine. By Friday, and for the first time in fifty-seven years, we will be the sole occupant in a building we no longer own. It is a bittersweet time of change and also a long-anticipated moment.

Join me in thanking the stalwart crew who has shepherded this process all along: our attorney, Arnie Karolewski, our broker, Jim Hanson, the entire executive cabinet, and especially our CFO, Richard Vivian, and our incomparable Senior Project Manager for Facilities, Bob Berridge. We happily owe them each an immense debt of gratitude, and I hope some of you might consider writing a note of appreciation.

During this very month in 2019, our board and cabinet leadership held a retreat with Beth Lewis, former CEO of 1517 Media, in which we first explored the question of whether our mission depended upon owning a building or might better be served by claiming a distinctive place but without ownership burdens. The board opted for the latter, and the ensuing four years (yes, four years) have been nothing less than a full exploration of what such a future would entail and the work it would require.

We still have a distance to go—completing the decommissioning, overseeing the buildout, and moving to the new facility—but our campus community has been strong all along the way. I trust we will remain so in the stages ahead.

While ownership of the building is no longer ours, through the end of our stay, much of how we’ve experienced the building will remain the same. This includes the seminary’s building operation hours, access to the mailroom, and the process for receiving support for building operations and making room reservations. Be on the lookout for a message from Bob Berridge about which portions of the facility are ours to use freely and those places from which we are restricted.

Finally, I am thankful for all of you and for God’s providence and guidance for our fine school. May God bless our efforts in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

James Nieman, PhD
President
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
1100 East 55th Street
Chicago, IL 60615

In the March 1, 2023 issue of the Christian Century, Editor/Publisher and Senior Pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Peter W. Marty takes on the cultural centrality of the hypermasculine. He argues that hypermasculinity must be put aside in favor of prioritizing the values of nurturing our capacity to love and working towards making the world a fairer place for everyone. In these days of local, national, and international political turmoil and divisive rhetoric that is often gendered in nature, his words take on a special poignancy.

Central to Marty’s argument is the work of Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago Alum Herbert Anderson (1962, BD), and his recently re-published text Jacob’s Shadow: Reimagining Masculinity (Wipf and Stock). In this text, Marty says, “Anderson challenges ideologies of male power in which swagger, aggression, tough talk, and the swallowing of tears are regularly extolled. Not until we locate ourselves in Jacob’s flawed humanity, his thirst for power, and his eventual woundedness, argues Anderson, do we have a chance of experiencing God with the depth that Jacob did.” This is the vision for the new masculine humanness presented in Anderson’s work; these are the times in which such considerations are more important than ever. 

The continued relevance of Anderson’s research is one reason that Jacob’s Shadow is just one of three texts by Anderson to be recently re-published: Anderson is also re-releasing The Divine Art of Dying: Living Well to Life’s End, which he wrote with Karen Speerstra, and Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divine, written with Edward Foley, Professor Emeritus at Catholic Theological Union (both published by Fortress Press). Both texts have proven invaluable to theologians, laypeople, and students. In Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals Anderson “conceptualizes the relationship between ritual and pastoral care that is vital and integrated.” In The Divine Art of Dying, Anderson explores “the considerations that may lead a person to discontinue treatments to prolong life and consciously make the ‘turn toward death’ while still embracing life,” says Kathleen Billman, John H. Tietjen Professor of Pastoral Ministry at LSTC.

Anderson himself is well versed in embracing life to the fullest. He was the recipient of the 2022 LSTC Lifetime Achievement Award and continues to be active in his ministry of teaching and writing. As evidenced by the recent re-publication of several of his seminal texts and the public engagement with his important ideas, the best is certainly yet to come. 

You can see a complete list of Dr. Anderson’s publications here.

The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago is pleased to announce the Leadership Initiative (LI), a new opportunity for the institution to provide theologically based leadership training for LSTC students, alumni, nonprofit leaders, and community partners.

The objective for this training is to prepare participants for leadership roles, both personal and organizational, in a variety of contexts. The LI’s aim is to transform organizations, improve efficiency, support value creation, and activate those they serve. Leadership training through this initiative will encourage participants to find new, innovative ways of developing and managing people, promote new opportunities, and address issues facing their organization or congregation.

The Leadership Initiative will be directed by the Damm Chair in Leadership, established 2018, to which a highly qualified individual will be appointed in Summer 2023. In the first year, the Chair will begin teaching courses at the master’s level of the Public Church curriculum, including introductory courses in pastoral, diaconal, and other forms of leadership and advanced courses on leadership topics. 

The holder of the Damm Chair will also teach graduate courses, including advanced seminars in our strongly international and ecumenical DMin. programs. Also in the first year of the LI, the Chair will begin work to integrate a theological and scriptural basis for leadership into broader curricular and cocurricular formation across the seminar. This work will continue and be further developed in the long-term. 

The development of the LSTC Leadership Initiative and forthcoming programmatic support reflects the institution’s commitment to interfaith relations; contextually engaged ministry; Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice; intersectional, cross-cultural and intercultural competency building, policy development, and collaboration.