Each year, the In Trust Center provides Resource Grants to support schools with matching funds for special projects. This story, by Karen Stiller, is part of a series highlighting initiatives made possible through these grants. Learn more about the Resource Grants program here.

Careful Change Is Coming to Famous Campus

“The dormitories and the chapel at Concordia were designed when Eisenhower was president,” says Lance Hoffman, chief operating officer at the Fort Wayne, Indiana-based seminary. “Our buildings are great. It’s just everything is 70 years old.”

The campus buildings are a design gem by renowned architect Eero Saarinen. They are also a rarity, one of a few projects in which Saarinen designed every building.

“He’s one of the top architects of the last century,” explains Hoffman. “We’re on the list of places to visit to understand mid-century modern design, which was his thing.”

As iconic as they are, the buildings have remained largely unchanged since Leave It to Beaver was popular, the Cold War raged, and rock and roll was emerging.

With a growing list of deferred maintenance projects, a team at Concordia, including Hoffman and Carrie O’Donnell, chief of staff, applied for an In Trust Resource Grant to hire an external consultant to closely evaluate their facilities and devise a campus master plan.

“In Trust Resource Grants have been incredibly helpful to us with many projects,” says O’Donnell. That was true of this latest use of funds as well.

“We had never done a campus master plan before,” continues O’Donnell. “No one had done that major project of looking at the whole campus and how it would affect our ability to fulfill our mission and vision long into the future. We needed that outside expert help to first educate us on what a campus master plan is, how you use it, how you develop it, and build a culture on campus to help create it and move forward with the plan.”

A few realities were quickly apparent to the team. “The campus was originally designed as an all-male senior college,” says Hoffman. “Now we’re essentially a graduate school. We’re still primarily men but we also have female students and women on our staff. There are also a lot of accessibility shortfalls. All those things were not a main component of design and construction in the 50’s. We don’t have that same level of access for people with ambulatory issues. We’ve done small things, but when you have a campus this size, it’s small steps at a time. Those are just some of the very clear needs.”

With a comprehensive campus master plan in hand, Concordia is now prioritizing and making plans. At the top of the list is a chapel renewal project.

“We are choosing projects based on importance to our mission,” explains Hoffman. “We are choosing projects we think would have good donor interest and things we think are important. But literally every building on campus is aged out so it wasn’t hard to find things to do.”

Another early priority is identifying a new, optimal location for a consolidated food and clothing co-operative, which is heavily used by single and married students on campus.

The chapel and the co-op align well with the four “pillars of priority” that the consultants helped the leadership team envision. “That is one of the exercises they led us through,” says O’Donnell. “First, we looked at the mission statement and did that long range planning, asking: What are our core values? How is that reflected in our infrastructure? We set up pillars of priority to guide us in how we address issues on campus, like campus life and safety issues, the impact on student recruitment and experience, financial stewardship, and the ways our building architecture supports the theological formation that takes place on the seminary campus.”

This thorough process, enabled by external experts, helped the Board of Regents, donors, and seminary supporters gain confidence in the process, says O’Donnell. “It’s all based on that vision for long into the future and the question: Who are we serving? The campus infrastructure will really support all of that.”

That support includes a renewed focus on student housing. “We are a little unique in ATS schools in that our church body is very committed to residential formation of our students,” says O’Donnell. “Despite this commitment, as we work on this master plan, we need to continue making the argument for residential formation. What will residential formation look like 15 years into the future? Ultimately, it’s about those pastors and church leaders that we are sending out and how this formation supports the work they are going to be doing.”

When architect Saarinen designed Concordia in a modernist, village-inspired style, he envisioned durable buildings for a growing community. That community has evolved, and more change lies on the horizon as Concordia Theological Seminary begins implementing its campus master plan, careful step by careful step.