The newsletter for chairs of theological school boards, Vol. 4, No. 11
Building consensus and trust
What does it look like to build consensus? For any leader, building the support to create consensus takes time, trust, and dedicated effort. There’s a remarkable example of that in Minnesota.
The Rev. Dr. Robin Steinke, the president of Luther Seminary, came into office in 2014 facing what she called “both a governance crisis and a liquidity crisis.” On a recent episode of the Good Governance podcast, she discusses how the seminary rose to meet those challenges. This episode would be helpful for any board to listen to and would be a good topic for ongoing board education. Here are two areas of exploration:
Shared governance: Steinke discusses how the school developed a framework for shared governance. The process resulted in both the faculty and the board supporting the framework. Luther’s approach provided transparency and buy-in for the entire school, and it would be a good point of consideration for any institution thinking through its own form of shared governance.
Planning for the future: Steinke discusses how Luther’s future planning led to the decision to sell its campus. She notes there wasn’t a financial necessity to sell, but instead it was about positioning the school for what’s to come. After working with leaders, Steinke brought a proposal to sell the campus, home to Luther for more than 100 years, and received a unanimous board vote in support.
I invite you to listen to the episode and have a conversation with your board. You can listen to it here. You might consider what difficult decisions you face and how you might build support and consensus to move your institution forward.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can email the team here.
Thanks for all you do in theological education,
Amy Kardash
President, In Trust Center for Theological Schools
