Seminary enrollment declines
Filed Under: BME, enrollment, Ministerial Education, Seminary, WLS
Official enrollment for the 2008-09 school year at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Mequon, is 165 men—down 10 from last year's 175 students. According to President Paul Wendland, the seminary expected this decline.
"We knew already four years ago, even as we were looking at our high-water mark of 191 students, that we were going to be declining," says Wendland. Looking at the numbers at both the seminary and Martin Luther College, New Ulm, Minn., Wendland says the seminary projects that enrollment will continue to decline for the next four years and then stabilize. "So that means smaller classes and fewer pastors will be graduating," he says.
According to Wendland, the declining numbers are cause for concern even though WELS has a low percentage of pastoral vacancies (unfilled calls). "When you're talking about the vacancy rate, you're talking about maintaining the status quo," he says. "You're not talking about increasing any ministry. So when you see these declining numbers, you have to be concerned not only about having sufficient numbers of pastors to fill our pulpits; you also have to be concerned about whether we can be as aggressive as we want to be in growing congregational ministries and in expanding our home and world missions."
Although traditional student enrollment is down, Wendland says the seminary continues to experience growth in its Pastoral Studies Institute for non-traditional students. Eight are enrolled in the Cristo Palabra de Vida Latino training program and twenty in the Asian seminary satellite program. There are also three second career men enrolled, and two others are receiving theological training for their involvement in specialized ministries. "It's an encouraging and welcome blessing from our God," says Wendland.
For more updates from the seminary and the other WELS worker training schools, read the Four Schools report online: www.wels.net/jump/fourschools
