Deborah Krause and Mary Schaller Blaufuss have known each other since living across a dormitory hall at Eden Theological Seminary in the late 1980s, when both were pursuing Master of Divinity degrees. In the intervening years, they have come full circle: the Rev. Dr. Krause returned to Eden in 2005 as academic dean and has now served as Eden’s president since 2018; the Rev. Dr. Blaufuss is vice president for institutional advancement, a position she has held since 2019. In conversation they frequently finish the other’s sentences.

These days, their discussions often turn to Eden’s implementation of a $5 million Lilly Endowment IncPathways for Tomorrow Phase III grant, awarded five years ago to establish alliances with free-standing theological seminaries, undergraduates in colleges and universities, and denominational bodies responsible for ministerial authorization in the United Church of Christ (UCC).

“Navigating the Shift: A Network Model for Theological Education” uses serial memoranda of understanding (MOUs) to establish working relationships with three goals: to build capacity for the partners; expand demand for theological education by introducing emerging leaders in various fields to congregations engaged in social transformation; and create access by re-aligning theological education and competency-based criteria for ministry discernment and formation.

“Eden has such a strong tradition of contextual education,” says Blaufuss. “Our students through the decades have really had that practical, integrative, and immersive experience as part of their education. This project really is contextual education meets distance education.”

“More learning opportunities,” Krause adds. Blaufuss says: “In non-degree, credit-bearing spaces.” Krause: “Where you’re being mentored.”

 

Supported by a Pathways Phase III grant, Eden Theological’s daring experiment in networked contextual education is creating a new model for collaboration.

 

Trust, Collaboration, Imagination

Blaufuss says that “Navigating the Shift” has antecedents in both social justice and an earlier MOU that established shared library resources with Webster University, a nearby Catholic institution. Eden also has a 20-year agreement with the Washington University School of Social Work for a dual Master of Social Work program.

Both say that the course-sharing collective coming out of the Lilly grant has had the most traction, where elective courses are open to every student of each school through discrete cross-registration agreements. More than 100 students have taken online courses through this arrangement in the past two years, according to Krause. Tuition is paid through the students’ home institutions.

They acknowledge an “unforeseen challenge,” according to Krause. “A couple of schools are really tight in terms of class size in order to sustain institutionally targeted student-to-faculty ratios. One of the learnings has been that not all of the schools have ample room for everybody who wants to come into their classes.”

Challenges of the network model

In the beginning, the shift toward the network model was uncertain. “Some of the faculty partners were asking ‘What is progressive theology? What is it in our curriculum that makes it progressive theology?’” Blaufuss says. “We are now attempting to build understanding, trust and relationships among the faculties of the schools for further collaboration.”

To that end, Blaufuss and Krause lean into the description of a “network model” from the Lilly proposal description, a model that “reduces costs, increases demand, and practices decentralized funding that supports innovation, financial sustainability and mission vibrancy. It repositions the theological seminary as part of a network in which the seminary plays a particular role in equipping theological imagination, spiritual and vocational formation, and social transformation.

“In combination, those elements create greater exposure to congregations, community engaged in social transformation, and introduces a new generation of leaders to its critical components.”

MOUs have become central to advancing the network model, establishing discrete roles, process and outcomes among the partners. A series of faculty forums and ongoing surveys among the participating schools fosters discussion and understanding of “progressive theological education,” particularly as it relates to the Pathways project. “You have to have their buy-in or it’s not going to work,” says Krause.

The project includes “swapping” faculty, she says. “Right now we have a United Seminary ethics professor teaching our required ethics class, and one of our faculty is teaching a course at United. There’s no tuition money, no salary money that exchanges. It’s really a collaboration exercise across all three initiatives. That’s the imagination we’re encouraging.”

Krause says that the schools are continuing to make adjustments for incentives based on faculty surveys and in-depth online discussion groups.

The Resilient Dean

Christopher Grundy joined Eden Theological in 2004 as an adjunct professor of worship and preaching, two years before completing his doctoral dissertation. Today, he is a full professor of worship and preaching, academic dean, dean of the chapel and a member of the president’s cabinet.

Grundy has acquired the kind of institutionally valued memory and sensitivity that informs thoughtful and flexible decision-making. He has played a significant role in steering the academic ventures of the Lilly project; navigating the intricacies of cross-institutional relationships, shared courses and faculty; and monitoring the evolving academic services infrastructure through what he describes as an iterative process of trial and error.

“This project doesn’t always feel nimble,” he says. “It’s definitely experimental. The adage ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ sounds more comfortable than it is in practice.”

Grundy is systematically addressing some critical pedagogical and financial challenges that have emerged as “Navigating the Shift” has evolved in its first few years.

Faculty Capacity

Initially, leadership envisioned having an entire class of another school’s students coming into an Eden class; at the time Eden had some smaller classes with capacity for more students. “We didn’t imagine that we might be talking about faculty sharing with seminaries whose faculty are teaching classes that are completely full, and whose teaching load for the year also is full,” Grundy says. “We were not expecting them to say, ‘Well, we would have to add another section and this person would have to teach an overload and that is going to have a cost.’”

MOUs in advance have helped regulate costs and the ebb-and-flow of enrollment. “You have to be able to evolve, to be flexible,” Grundy says.

Course sharing

A significant focus of the project is course sharing among the partners. “We are trying to work on a model where money is not changing hands between the schools,” Grundy says. “So now we run up against a situation where a school is saying, ‘This is actually going to cost us to provide an extra section,’ and we ended up having to pay for that.” The partners are creating MOUs to navigate a way forward, Grundy says.

Learning Management Systems (LMS)

The number and diversity of LMS at each school introduced a level of complexity, if not confusion, particularly for the majority of students who are pursuing ministry in second careers, Grundy says. A grant proposal is underway to help fund a common LMS or a single sign-on system.

Accelerated undergraduate degree programs

In an effort to provide ways for undergraduate students (predominantly at UCC colleges) to pursue “professional preparation for socially transformative ministry” in the church, Eden’s project envisioned an accelerated bachelor-to-master’s degree initiative. A speaker series at targeted colleges introduced undergraduates to the plan, and a few students enrolled. The initiative has encountered two hurdles: state regulatory issues related to the assignment of course credits, and revenue losses for the undergraduate institutions. Negotiations are continuing, Grundy says.

UCC Programs

The past 50 years have seen a gradual separation between UCC theological schools and church bodies tasked to authorize ministers, according to Eden’s Pathways application. To bridge the gap, “Navigating the Shift” envisioned the creation of customizable packages of preparation for Ministers-in-Development within the United Church of Christ. Working with UCC judicatories, Eden has developed ministry cohorts, groups of prospective ministers who meet monthly in focused sessions with a faculty facilitator (typically an Eden professor with a Ph.D.). Each cohort meets regularly for three months; participants can then elect to sign up for another cohort. Pricing strategies are designed to emphasize affordability and accessibilty.

 

The adage ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ sounds more comfortable than it is. In practice, invention born of necessity is not a particularly comfortable or pleasant experience.

 

Wisdom from the tech sector

David Luckes has a self-described “verbosity disorder,” and it only takes a few minutes in conversation to know that he is brimming with ideas and passion. He has had a long career in investment management and served as chief executive officer of the Community Foundation in St. Louis, Missouri.

A member of the Eden Board of Trustees for 13 years, he was the chair when the board discerned its decision to invite Krause to be president. He also chaired the Strategic Planning Committee during the development of the Pathways for Tomorrow grant proposal.

“I remember Deb said we wouldn’t see the progressive Christian Church or the future of theological education thrive unless we move toward collaborative leadership and a more iterative market approach, similar to the tech sector,” Luckes recalls. “Setting direction, getting to market, developing relationships, testing, adjusting and then in an iterative way getting feedback and adjusting some more.

“What that set as a marker was it’s not just about Eden surviving. It’s not just about, ‘Oh, we’re the best independent progressive seminary in the Midwest.’ I thought the profound insight of that was about finding community.”

“Paying attention to where the Spirit is leading”

Eden’s Christopher Grundy has a long view of Eden’s modern history, and he has seen a significant culture shift, from staying-the-course to agility.

Much has changed, he says, and the Lilly support has abetted a more discerning approach to the project. Eden is now among a group of theological schools invited to make a request for additional funding in the next round of Pathways for Tomorrow.

“Our president is good about paying attention to where the Spirit is leading, to what God is doing with our students,” Grundy says. “The recent revision of our mission statement is that we’re training leaders with ‘theological imagination and faithful resilience to be able to join God’s loving and liberating work in the world.’ The idea is that anywhere you go, you’re not bringing God there. You are joining what God is already doing.

“And that sense of paying attention to join what God is doing has been an important theological theme that our president has done a good job of keeping in front of us.”