- Fuller Theological Seminary has announced that it will be closing its regional campuses in Seattle, Menlo Park, and Orange County. It also will discontinue offering the MDiv, MAT, MATM, and MAICS degree programs in Phoenix, however the MFT program at Phoenix will continue to be offered.
The closings, pending the approval of the Association of Theological Schools, will become effective Sept. 30, 2019.
The reason given to the closings is the expansion of Fuller Online. In His announcement to Fuller students, Provost Joel Green wrote:
In 2010, the Fuller Seminary faculty voted to mainstream online education by adopting a faculty-intensive approach to teaching and learning and by raising the number of units our students could complete online. At the time, we wondered if we might be able to offer 100 courses online, with room for enrollments of 2500 each year. We could not have imagined that, today, we would be contemplating 260 courses online, with enrollments reaching some 6500 in a year. Nor could we have anticipated the mile marker we reached in the 2016 Fall Quarter, when Fuller Online out-enrolled all other Fuller Seminary campuses.
Green wrote that “With the beginning of the 2019-20 academic year, then, Fuller Seminary will be offering courses in Pasadena, Houston, Phoenix (MFT), Colorado Springs (MAGL and courses for Young Life students), and online.”
Seminary President Mark Labberton also addressed the issue with the seminary’s alumni in the following message:
Dear Fuller Alumni,
As I travel, I have the privilege of meeting Fuller alumni and hearing stories about alumni who are influencing the world through various vocations. It is truly inspiring. Since we consider alumni as lifelong partners in Fuller’s mission, I wanted to share with you reflections on changes we are seeing in theological education and the implications for Fuller.
We live in times of extraordinary change. Thomas Friedman speaks about this very graphically in his book, Thank You For Being Late when he refers to Moore’s Law about the speed of technological change. This Law that computing speed and capacity doubles every two years has been more or less true for the past 50 years, and has meant compound change for every one of our lives. To make Moore’s Law clearer, the Intel company calculated that if we owned a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle and allowed Moore’s Law to change it in the same way we have experienced its impact on computing this would be the result: the VW Bug would now travel at 300,000 miles per hour, a gallon of gas would take us 2 million miles, and the car would now cost 4¢. Astounding!
These changes have affected all parts of life, but they have had exceptional influence on education and educational technology. It explains both how and why online education has become so powerful and prominent and how this is disrupting our work at many of our regional campuses.
Along these lines, I wanted to share a portion of a notification to students about transitions on regional campuses that was sent out on July 17, 2017 from Fuller’s Provost Joel Green:
In the 1970s, Fuller Seminary pioneered distance education among theological schools by opening the first of a series of regional campuses. This innovation would eventually allow Fuller Seminary to set down deep roots in Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, and, of course, California – serving God’s kingdom by equipping students for ministry in and beyond local congregations. Other innovations would follow, including independent distance learning; two, three, and four-way audio-video courses; and online courses. Advances in educational technology have led to an ever-widening range of modalities by which we have aimed at a transformative learning experience for our students.
In 2010, the Fuller Seminary faculty voted to mainstream online education by adopting a faculty-intensive approach to teaching and learning and by raising the number of units our students could complete online. At the time, we wondered if we might be able to offer 100 courses online, with room for enrollments of 2500 each year. We could not have imagined that, today, we would be contemplating 260 courses online, with enrollments reaching some 6500 in a year. Nor could we have anticipated the mile marker we reached in the 2016 Fall Quarter, when Fuller Online out-enrolled all other Fuller Seminary campuses.
Because Fuller Online has prompted an expansion of our global footprint, these are exciting times for a seminary community “dedicated to the equipping of men and women for the manifold ministries of Christ and his church” across the US and, indeed, throughout the world. Unfortunately, at the same time, the significant increase in online enrollment has been matched by a decrease in enrollment on our geophysical campuses. To offer one snapshot, while Winter Quarter online enrollment has increased by almost 50% from 2013-17, enrollment on our Regional Campuses has decreased by about 30% during the same period. This shift from our geophysical classes to online brings with it certain challenges. Primary among those is the increasing difficulty of attracting enough students to foster a genuine learning community in some of our Regional Campus classrooms – a difficulty that has had a negative impact on the financial sustainability of some of our Regional Campus efforts.
Accordingly, we have decided to take steps to close our campuses in Seattle, Menlo Park, and Orange County, and to discontinue offering the MDiv, MAT, MATM, and MAICS degree programs in Phoenix. We will maintain a Regional Campus in Phoenix, where we will continue to offer the MFT program. Pending approval from the Association of Theological Schools, this decision will be effective 30 September 2019.
We had already repurposed our Regional Campus in Colorado Springs to offer Hybrid Plus courses for the MAICS, MAT, MATM, and MDiv degrees, but Hybrid Plus course offerings in Colorado Springs will be discontinued after the 2018 Summer Quarter.
With the beginning of the 2019-20 academic year, then, Fuller Seminary will be offering courses in Pasadena, Houston, Phoenix (MFT), Colorado Springs (MAGL and courses for Young Life students), and online.
As we talk about the significant shift of students choosing online options, it is important to acknowledge that online courses are not everyone’s preference. It is also the case that regional campuses are not just class-sites. Friendships and ministry partnerships have been an invaluable part of our regional campus ministries. This makes closing some of our regional campuses more painful, even if the trajectory is not sustainable.
It is also important to highlight that in recent years, we have increased our investment in the holistic formation of our students. Along these lines, faculty and staff are actively pursuing various opportunities to provide formation in creative ways for students who have chosen to take their courses primarily online. In fact, we are working to capitalize on the unique formation opportunities made possible by students pursuing theological education while remaining embedded in their church, ministry, communities, and jobs.
As we phase out certain regional campuses and programs, we will be working with each student impacted by these decisions to come up with a plan to complete their degree. We are also not backing away from Fuller’s commitment to a regional presence, but we are retooling for a different world. In each region, we will explore opportunities with churches, ministries, and nonprofit organizations to serve as a training and formation partner. Based on the needs of these organizations, we will provide an array of learning opportunities through online, intensive, and hybrid modalities.
We understand that for alumni whose primary formation experience was at a regional campus, the decision to close campuses and programs is a source of sadness and grief. The leadership team of the seminary shares this sense of loss and wrestled through the difficult decisions with careful analysis over an extended period of time. As we mourn the loss, it is also important to celebrate the rich history and remarkable impact of these campuses and programs. Along these lines, I will visit each region prior to September 2019 to host a gathering for students, alumni, supporters, and friends to celebrate God’s work in these learning communities. We will send out details in a future communication.
Fuller’s board of trustees is seeking to do all that is necessary to secure a flourishing future for the seminary. In fact, the board, together with the faculty and staff, has set aside Tuesdays from now through October as days when as a community we can pray and fast as we seek God’s guidance for Fuller’s future. We invite you to join us in asking God for his wisdom in this season of rapid change.
Thank you again for your continued partnership in the mission!
Sincerely,
Mark Labberton
5 Comments. Leave new
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If there is one lesson from the great decline/collapse of mainline Protestantism , it is that the mid-20th century business model of theological education requiring 3 residential plus years at a brick and mortar campus is not a sustainable model almost 3 decades into the 21st century. In fact modern theological students now take anywhere from 3 to 5 years to do basic M.Div. work when time outs and other life issues factored.
Further to assume that students, be it second career, or traditional will choose to take on even more thousands of educational debt, on top of what they already have prior for career options that top out at 45-60K a year according to BLS stats on Clergy compensation. The risk-reward of the profession does not justify the costs of modern theological education.
And this is especially true in a PCUSA where over 65% of all reported churches are 100 members or smaller, and more and more are being staffed by lay volunteers and bi-vocational models of career patterns. Theological trained professional clergy classes of people as a full time career patterns are as endangered as the denominations they seek to serve.
Sooner or later I expect the Board of Pension will come to the conclusion that if churches no longer exist to pay its bills or clergy wanting or be able to access its goods and services, that they may wish to downsize a bit too.
As someone who has both received an advanced on-line degree and has instructed in on-line graduate education for nearly a decade, I heartily applaud Fuller’s decision. But it isn’t just the platform that accounts for Fuller’s success – they are offering a quality product that stands in sharp contrast with the education offered by seminaries from the more traditional Mainline “Legacy” denominations, where seminary enrollment continues to drop. If people won’t sit in a classroom with someone selling garbage, they certainly won’t allow it into their homes or to infest their computers.
If online professional education is really the wave of the future, why haven’t the medical schools, law schools, pharmacy schools, dental schools, veterinary medicine schools jumped on the bandwagon?
How can I possibly quibble with someone named Donald. Such a wonderful name, don’t you think? However, I do have a different perspective. Having once served as the director of the online education program of a large state university, I have seen both the upside and the downside of online and other distributed learning environments. And there definitely is a downside. In the old days, a seminary was not seen simply a school where course material was taught and mastered by the students, but as a community of learners who were on a journey together toward a shared life of pastoral ministry within a network of churches. The daily personal interactions of the students both in and out of class formed the environment in which we were formed for the ministry we hoped to perform. Online education simply cannot provide this environment, despite serious efforts to build online community through various means, none of which, in my opinion, ever achieved their aim. The abandonment of a three-year program of residential seminary education is a net loss for everyone involved, a loss for which no online program however well designed can ever fully compensate.