Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 06:41:47 -0400 From: Darrell Todd Maurina Reply-To: Darrell128@aol.com Organization: Christian Renewal/United Reformed News Service Subject: NR 98112: Mid-America Reformed Seminary Moves Toward Accreditation NR #1998-112: Mid-America Reformed Seminary Moves Toward Accreditation Mid-America Reformed Seminary has begun the process of seeking accreditation for its Master of Divinity degree program. The seminary, founded in 1982 in the Northwest Iowa town of Orange City as an alternative to Calvin Theological Seminary and primarily intended for conservative Christian Reformed students, has broadened its focus over the years. Seminary growth both led to and resulted from a move to Chicago, and the seminary has now decided to seek accreditation from the Association of Theological Schools, the primary accrediting body for graduate level seminary training in the United States. "Accreditation is basically a means of exercising some kind of mutual accountability between institutions of a similar kind and program to make sure that minimum standards are in place," said Mid-America professor Dr. Cornel Venema, who is coordinating the accreditation effort. Venema noted that some evangelical seminaries have gotten into difficulty over their theological stances with other accrediting agencies, but he didn't expect such problems from ATS. "Most of the Reformed and Presbyterian seminaries are either accredited or pursuing accreditation," said Venema. "We're not interested in accreditation if at any point we have to compromise something of which we are convicted." NR #1998-112: For Immediate Release: Mid-America Reformed Seminary Moves Toward Accreditation by Darrell Todd Maurina, Press Officer United Reformed News Service (October 14, 1998) URNS - Mid-America Reformed Seminary has begun the process of seeking accreditation for its Master of Divinity degree program. The seminary, founded in 1982 in the Northwest Iowa town of Orange City as an alternative to Calvin Theological Seminary and primarily intended for conservative Christian Reformed students, has broadened its focus over the years. While still training Christian Reformed students and having two CRC ministers on its faculty, the faculty also includes two United Reformed ministers and one Presbyterian Church in America minister. Board or student body members are drawn from a number of additional denominations and fellowships such as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Reformed Church in the United States, Orthodox Christian Reformed Churches, Alliance of Reformed Churches, and independent Reformed congregations, and the seminary expects to replace its retiring PCA faculty member with an OPC minister. Seminary growth both led to and resulted from a move to Chicago, and the seminary has now decided to seek accreditation from the Association of Theological Schools, the primary accrediting body for graduate level seminary training in the United States. "Accreditation is basically a means of exercising some kind of mutual accountability between institutions of a similar kind and program to make sure that minimum standards are in place," said Mid-America professor Dr. Cornel Venema, who is coordinating the accreditation effort. "The defense of accreditation would be that you have to have some minimal standards and you ought not to have schools which advertise themselves as having a certain kind of program and don't meet minimal standards." While accreditation has led to some high-profile battles by conservative seminaries against accreditation association policies on diversity and academic freedom - most notably the fight at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia against an effort to force the school to place women on its board and several Southern Baptist seminaries which were placed on review after conservative purges of allegedly unorthodox professors - most of those situations happened with regional accrediting associations that review a wide variety of graduate and undergraduate programs rather than ATS, which focuses only on seminaries and graduate programs in theology. The United States government recognizes the regional accrediting associations as well as a variety of specialized accrediting agencies such as ATS and a similar agency accrediting Bible colleges as meeting the requisite standards to assure academic quality. "There is no doubt that ATS historically, like many accrediting bodies, has some interests in discrimination kinds of issues, concerns about whether women are permitted into certain types of programs, but they have to recognize that institutions based on certain confessional traditions are unable to admit women into their programs," said Venema, noting that a number of ATS-accredited seminaries are Roman Catholic and cannot admit women to certain programs of preparation for the priesthood. "It is much more inclusive of evangelical, conservative, and Reformed institutions at this point; it is less difficult to deal with some of those issues than it might have been in the past." Venema noted that the current ATS president is Dr. Luder Whitlock, president of Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, and that its member seminaries include Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Westminster Theological Seminary in California, Reformed Theological Seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary, Knox Theological Seminary, and the Reformed Presbyterian Seminary in Pittsburgh. "Most of the Reformed and Presbyterian seminaries are either accredited or pursuing accreditation," said Venema. "We're not interested in accreditation if at any point we have to compromise something of which we are convicted. If we are told you have to have women in the program or if you have to change the name of a course because it's not inclusive enough, we'll have to back away from the process." Venema said that Mid-America's reasons for pursuing accreditation ranged from pragmatic questions of receiving charitable donations and forbearance for student loans to respectability issues such as being able to document the quality of its academic program. "When you are not accredited you always face the presumption that you are not academically as strong as you might be, and therefore are not accredited; we think our program is a good program and can stand on its own feet," said Venema. "The other problem is you are not recognized by Revenue Canada as an organization to which Canadians can give money. That has been a problem for us and that's one of the reasons we have this Canadian foundation. Students come to us with loans and cannot get a deferral during the course of their study. One student was legally blind, and because we are not accredited, his study with us does not qualify him for aid he would otherwise have gotten." At this point, Mid-America is an "associate member" of ATS, which has sent a review team to the seminary to identify areas of strength and weakness; if it successfully sustains a series of reviews, Mid-America will eventually become a candidate and then a full member of ATS. Venema said the main changes proposed by ATS have been in the area of library computerization, additional professionally-trained library personnel, creating of a faculty study leave or sabbatical policy, and appointment of a full-time president. Since its founding, Mid-America has followed the model of Calvin Theological Seminary and Westminster Theological Seminary in their early years, both of which opposed a full-time president in favor of placing seminary governance strongly in the hands of the faculty. Both institutions have had presidents for years, but Mid-America has so far declined to appoint a president. The seminary is, however, evaluating the arguments for and against having a chief executive officer, and was doing so prior to seeking accreditation. "ATS would like a school to have a president, they think that's the optimum approach to have a CEO, but some have a provost, some have a dean, some are part of a larger university and are under another administrative structure, and not having a president, in itself, would not preclude our accreditation," said Venema. Venema said the academic training of the professors and library size - sometimes problems for evangelical seminaries - were not problems for Mid-America. "Three of the five faculty members do have an earned doctorate, one has a masters beyond an M.Div.," said Venema. "Other than the encouragement that we should go farther than we have gone with getting on-line. They made some observations about faculty development, meaning if the school grows we'll need to consider more faculty members." Cross-References to Related Articles: [No related articles on file] Contact List: Dr. Cornelis Venema, Professor, Mid-America Reformed Seminary 229 Seminary Dr., Dyer, IN 46311 O: (219) 864-2400 * H: (219) 322-7568 * FAX: (219) 864-2410 * E-Mail: cornel@jorsm.com ---------------------------------------------------------- file: /pub/resources/text/reformed/archive98: nr98-112.txt .