Sixty-seven schools share
strategies for reducing student debt

Rising tuition costs, shrinking revenues, and lower clergy salaries have led to significant financial challenges for future ministers pursuing theological education. But in 2014, more than 60 schools began projects to address these issues through the Lilly Endowment Initiative to Address the Economic Challenges Facing Future Ministers, coordinated by ATS. Read more.

Why the Strategic Information Report
is an essential tool in every school's toolbox, and three questions every administrator
and board member
should ask

By now every CEO of an ATS member school has received the 2015 Strategic Information Report (SIR), designed to provide a variety of strategic indicators to help assess the school's overall financial strength and performance in a range of areas. The SIR can be used as a tool in your school's strategic planning process by providing 10 years of institutional data, along with benchmark comparatives to other theological schools. To make the most of this tool, every administrator and board member should ask three simple questions. Read more.

Standing at the door: Blessing or blocking?

"People are not running away from seminary. They are looking for seminary. The larger community is asking how the seminary contributes or invests in the community and the church. The question is, Are seminaries going to be led by blockers or blessers?" John Kinney's message to student personnel administrators at an April 2015 conference offers valuable insights for all theological educators. Read more.

Thirteen United Methodist seminary leaders add voices against violence and injustice

Adding their voices to those of PCUSA and ELCA leaders, AUMTS is the latest denominational group to add support for the open letter from African American presidents and deans. Sharing incremental progress to date at their schools, they conclude, "We all share a renewed commitment to a more effective deployment of our graduates who are students of color, a greater diversification of our administrations, faculties, and student bodies, and a reimagining of curricula that enables us to better address structural and systemic issues that have given rise to some of the current racial tensions." Read more.