Baptist Press so reports: SWBTS cuts staff due to health care, utility costs
After making “low-hanging fruit adjustments” that included reductions in dining services, copy center hours and the fleet of vehicles at the 200-acre campus, Patrick said the administration decided not to fill positions from natural attrition, including student employees who are graduating and staff and faculty set to retire.
In order to continue providing health care benefits to employees and their dependents, a third round of cuts involved laying off 30 fulltime staff “in selected areas where functions can be covered in other ways or by organizational change,” Patrick said.
Noting that implementation of the Affordable Care Act prompted many institutions and companies to discontinue spousal and dependent coverage from employer health insurance plans, Patrick said Southwestern has made the decision to maintain those benefits because the seminary “places a high value on the family” as “a critical institution established by God.”
The 865-member workforce at Southwestern includes 300 fulltime and 565 part-time employees. Classes taught by the four faculty members scheduled to retire will be covered by current professors.
This is no small matter, even though 10% doesn’t sound like a lot. State conventions cut greater proportions a few years ago. Our IMB reduced their personnel by much more than that, although the number IMB cut (as opposed to retirements and resignations) was a much tinier percentage than SWBTS’ 10 percent.
I only know what is publicly reported and don’t question the problems with rising insurance and utility costs but freestanding seminaries are expensive things and we’ve got six of them. They compete against each other for students as well as competing against non-CP supported seminaries such as Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, Luther Rice Seminary, and Liberty.
The problem at SWBTS might be better judged by the figures below:
2008-2009 Enrollment SBC Funded Full-Time Equivalents: 1,981
2015-2016 Enrollment SBC Funded Full-Time Equivalents: 1,249
A decline in this period of more than one-third. FTEs are the critical figure I am told.
2008-2009 Head Count Enrollment 3,515
2015-2016 Head Count Enrollment 4,276
Total head count enrollment increased by about 21%. As the SWBTS spokesperson said in the BP article, “The head count enrollment at Southwestern continues to be sustained, but students are taking fewer hours…” Fewer hours means less tuition, less CP, I believe.
The number of students in the Master of Divinity program, the gold standard for ministry preparation, dropped by almost half in the period compared above. Whereas MDiv students used to comprise over 60 percent of the FTE student count for Southwestern, in the last year available they accounted for only about one-third.
Someone more knowledgable than I may read financial statements with more acumen, but it looks to me like the last two years show about $26 million used or borrowed from endowment funds to provide positive cash flows.
I readily identify with Paige Patterson when he says, as he was quoted in the BP article above,
In serving 42 years as a president of Southern Baptist schools, Patterson said, “Not a day of it has been free from concerns about funding. The exorbitant cost of health care is the latest dilemma. Consequently, we have to tighten our belt.”
There have been plenty of Mondays that I had to decide which church bills we would pay this week and which would be held until after next Sunday’s offering. My scale was micro. At the seminary scale it is macro and a lot of people depend on sound fiscal management. I trust that SWBTS through these cuts is practicing some pre-emptive austerity to avoid the type of catastrophic situation which IMB handed David Platt.
I periodically run across articles on the unsustainability of the stand-alone seminary system. We’ve got the six. Can they all thrive? I don’t know. There is an ebb and flow among them in regard to growth and decline but it seems to me that a denomination that is showing no growth and in which our financial engines have declined and are now flat will portend some difficulty in the future. All of the seminaries have dedicated, sometimes noisy constituencies along with unique histories. If I took a 20 year nap and woke up in 2037, I’d be shocked to see anything other than the same six.
God bless SWBTS in a time of challenges.
___________
There are plenty of SWBTS alumni who participate here along with a trustee or two. I haven’t been on the campus in years and haven’t had a conversation about this with anyone. It’s all from publicly disclosed information and data. If I missed or am incorrect about anything here, please correct or expand as is necessary.
Once again, ‘Simple SBC’ is so needed. The SBC needs to be proactive in reducing its footprint and increasing its productivity by: getting rid or NAMB and the ERLC, spinning Lifeway off allowing it to compete in as a for profit company and reducing the number of SBC seminaries from six to two or three….We need to get back to our roots and get rid of all the ‘fluff stuff’ we have accumulated through the years. It historically has been and still should be the job of the State Conventions and local associations to equip and assist the churches. The SBC should focus on serving as our International Missions Sending board. After all, that is what the SBC was founded for.
Basically, get rid of those you don’t like?
Could you further explain your comment about Liberty?
I think I’ll save that for another time. The point was that there is heavy competition for enrollment. Liberty markets heavily for SBC students.
Thank you for the interesting article, William. Here are a couple of things that jump out at me that folks might either agree or disagree with:
First, brick and mortar campuses are increasingly becoming unnecessary in most educational endeavors. Brick and mortar increase costs exponentially, with utilities, maintenance, and insurance. Brick and mortar campuses are also extremely limited as to the number of students that they can accommodate. There are advantages for both the seminary and the students in pursuing more online course offerings.
Second, I think that the MDiv is losing popularity as an increasing number of pastors and students see it as an unnecessary expense. Quite frankly, why would anyone put themselves through the monetary expense and time investment of 90 hours beyond a bachelor level degree, just so you can pastor a church of 100 people? Not to mention with all the bible study tools we have available thanks to Logos/Accordance, plus well over 100 translations of the Bible in English, why would one put themselves through a language intensive study like a MDiv program?
I believe that this is one area that the SBC and the seminaries themselves are going to have to take a more detailed look at than just simply analyzing budgets and making cuts.
I want to echo John’s comments here. I am a university professor, so I am by no means anti-education, but I have long felt that making a master’s degree the standard for pastoral education was placing an undue burden on both the student and the church they would eventually pastor. In this layperson’s opinion, the essential skills for a successful pastor just don’t require a master’s degree.
And hate the internet or love it, online education is the future, and seminaries will have to adjust. That genie isn’t going back into the bottle.
…would be a good subject to discuss. Offer an MDiv lite, two years, and automatically cut paid tuition hours by 1/3 or so. There is little incentive that I can see for SBC seminaries to do this. I’m likely uninformed on this. Best I can see a two-year masters would be looked at by SBC churches as positively as a three-year one. If I sat in the pews, which I do a lot of these days, I’d almost vote for a pastor who didn’t have Greek and Hebrew and thus would spare his hearers all the “well, the Greek [Hebrew] says this…” or, “this is my own personal translatio of this text…blah, blah…”
Unfortunately, I’ve heard too many people who never studied Greek or Hebrew a day in their life say, “Well, the Greek says….”
As long as they get it right – who cares?
There are plenty of free/inexpensive resources that can help one do that.
Since the greek and hebrew pretty much say what the english translations says it says, I agree that an extensive greek and hebrew education probably isn’t going to impress most congregations. Are there times it has value? Sure. But as Dave says, there are lots of free resources out there to draw upon.
In terms of a 2 vs 3 year masters, other than seeing the letters M.Div, I doubt most churches would even look further.
Midwestern has their Accelerate program which is 5 years to Bachelor’s and MDiv. http://www.mbts.edu/academics/accelerate/
Which Seminary would we close?
Based on size, you would close Midwestern or Gateway
Based on geography, New Orleans would be the most likely cut
Based on Tulip issues you would close Southern if anti-tulip or Southwestern if pro-tulip
Based on age you cut Southern for being too old or Midwestern for being too young.
In short, how would you decide this? On what basis?
I don’t think any of our seminaries are going to be cut, unless they simply fail – due to not attracting students.
I made a suggestion among friends, which I will make here. SWBTS would be wise (and Bart or someone could inform me if plans have been either made or implemented) to position itself as the SBC Seminary to the Hispanic world. It is uniquely positioned to do so.
Gateway is providing a great service out west and Midwestern (which should be MWBTS but insists on wrongly being MBTS) is up and coming! Southwestern’s FTE numbers are way down. Focusing on the Spanish-speaking Central American community could be a good thing. Of course, maybe someone is already doing that. I don’t know.
Daniel Sanchez has taught in the school of missions at SWBTS for a while, but I don’t think SWBTS has done much else to focus on the Hispanic world.
The BGCT-affiliated Baptist University of the Americas is the one SBC-related school that I am aware of that is most focused on the Hispanic community.
Southeastern is actually the youngest of the six SBC seminaries. It was founded after Golden Gate and Midwestern. It has Master’s programs in Spanish. It is developing courses in Persian too. Gateway has an MDiv in Korean and I bet they either have one or will have one in Mandarin too.
SEBTS is also a leading seminary pipeline to the IMB. They have multiple avenues for the MDiv from on campus study, hybrid and distance/online. Their focus on missions and diversity attracts people from outside the SBC family. I know students here who are going overseas, to plant in the US, to revitalize in the US and to serve healthy churches in both urban and rural settings.
SBC churches are being served well by those who leave SEBTS. I know students from eight countries on five continents here so the US and the world has students here learning and going to fulfill the Great Commission.
The SBC’s Cooperative Program budget allocates 21% to the six seminaries. The six seminaries divide that money according to a complex formula. The key element in the formula is Full-time Equivalence (FTE). The FTE of a seminary is calculated by dividing the total number of semester hours (credits) completed by 12 for a semester or 24 for an academic year. All of our seminaries have a head count that is much larger than the FTE. I recall a faculty meeting at Southern Seminary in which Dr. Al Mohler, the seminary president, bemoaned the fact that SBTS had more students who were taking few semester hours each semester. In regard to Liberty–it has a huge online program, and many students who might have become a residential student at one of our seminaries decide to stay at home and study via the internet. For what it is worth, I’ve heard that Dallas Theological Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Chicago) have experienced enrollment declines, also.
To my comment above I might have added this. When I taught at Southern Seminary, I recall several faculty meetings in which Dr. Mohler explained why the faculty did not receive a raise in salary. Each time, he said that the administration had budgeted money for faculty raises, but they had to reallocate the money to cover increases in the cost of medical insurance.
Brethren, we’re not going to close any seminaries unless something catastrophic occurrs. Most of their funding comes apart from the CP, anyway. I’d be perfectly willing for any astute SBCer to write a proposal for publication here on why and how this should be done. While such always pops up but the reality on the ground makes it a meaningless point.
How about a consideration of SWBTS’ difficulties, causes, and solutions.
Or, some wag create a fantasy SBC league and deal with it there.
Thanks.
When I taught at Southern Seminary, the funds from the SBC Cooperative Program made up 23% of the seminary’s budget. I’m guessing that the percentage is lower now. So, William is right that the CP funds represent a relatively small part of each seminary’s budget. He is also correct in observing that each seminary has loyal alumni, who would pitch a conniption fit at the mere suggestion of closing their alma mater.
It appears SWBTS’ financial problems are caused by declining enrollment which leads to less tuition revenue. Why has SWBTS enrollment declined?
1. SWBTS has portrayed itself as the “anti-Reformed Anabaptist Seminary” at a time when Reformed theology is very popular among young men going into the ministry.
2. The persona, style, and theology of Paige Patterson do not have much appeal to young men going into the ministry. Other young men may fear that associating with Paige Patterson by going to SWBTS may make them toxic to churches.
3. The Baptist General Convention of Texas is controlled by moderates who are hostile to the SBC. BSM directors steer their students away from SWBTS. Professors at Baptist colleges in Texas are hostile to SWBTS. Baptist colleges like Baylor and Hardin Simmons have started divinity schools that compete with SWBTS.
4. Many students are doing Liberty online instead of going to SWBTS.
5. Churches seem to place less value on educational credentials and are putting more emphasis on finding a young man with enough charisma to get young adults to come to the church. Often this turns out to be a former youth ministry with only a bachelor’s degree in religion. Usually, these guys know the Bible well enough to preach it and are able to use the wealth of resources that exists now to make up a for a lack of seminary education.
#nailedit
I will say, it doesn’t look great that multiple buildings are being built (Methena and a new building which I understand will be Dr. Patterson’s new house) while on campus attendance is going down and they are cutting full time staff. Even if the building is completely donated, it doesn’t look great perception wise and the cost of maintenance will be a fortune.
Hoping things will work out in the end.
One of the issues is that at least two promised donations for Mathena Hall defaulted. One of the donations was $500,000 and I do not know the amount of the other. Now the seminary is on-the-hook for the deficit and are planning to take out a loan to cover it. This action seems unprecedented. In total, SWBTS is $2.14 million in the red. Dr. Patrick does not mention this in his press release, but these facts were revealed to the faculty in a private meeting that occurred on Nov 1, 2017.
The layoffs have been a bit of a head-scratcher. Many key personnel have been terminated and with some inconsistency. For example, some were given until the end of November, some will stay until December, and some were let go without warning and told not to come back.
What is the most interesting is the continuous renovation projects and new building projects. The old Lifeway building has been converted into the new Welcome Center and remains understaffed. A good number of newly built offices have never been occupied. The International Student Ministry Services suite (located in the Fleming basement) was renovated, but now the office staff are being moved to the new Welcome Center. Why then was the old space renovated?
Why renovate unnecessarily? Why construct new buildings when on-campus enrollment is down and the budget is down? Is it common practice to complete a building project when not all the donor money is accounted for? Why eliminate student and family amenities, why eliminate full time staff without notice prior to the holiday season while striving to be pro-family?
It seems like Gateway has the right idea, but why is Southwestern adamant about continuous construction?
Sounds like it might be a case of – FODS!!
Field Of Dreams Syndrome.
“If you build it, the will come.”
For the record, David M is a different David M than Dave Miller.
Just wanted to make everyone aware. He probably doesn’t want to be confused with me either.
And I think my fellow David might have meant “Dr. Patterson” when referencing the press release.
Most pastors know that it is easier to raise money to build buildings than to sustain the operating budget; hence, the designated millions for construction while staff is being cut. Since the seminary rep addressed that in the BP article, I guess they understand that questions are being raised. Still, it’s a valid question. I wouldn’t be excited about it if I was one of the pink-slipped FT staff.
If I were a FT employee at SWBTS and I escaped the first round of pink slips – I think I might soon be dusting off my resume and quietly looking for employment elsewhere.
Also – the not replacing of students who graduated might have the effect of more students taking less hours (or leaving all together) if there is fewer on campus jobs….
One reason for cutting back on faculty may be that we have kept relatively the same number of faculty today as back when we have over 3,000 FTE students, including over 1,500 M.Div.
Our seminary years at SWBTS were a challenging but cherished time in our lives. We made so many friends and created so many connections that have helped sustain and encourage us during the hard times in ministry. On-line degrees are convenient, but there’s something to be said for going to a new city (often as a newly married couple) and trying your wings in ministry before you are the leader of a church. A seminary degree should also be an indication to a church that a minister has the self-discipline to balance study with other priorities and the perseverance to finish a degree program. That being said, the Master’s programs are certainly too long and expensive when compared to non-seminary programs but they are too valuable to discount altogether and leave our next generation of pastors to be educated solely through Internet resources. I hope there will always be a place in the SBC for Biblical scholarship and a sound theological education.
The years I spent 1997-2001 at SWBTS were a cherished time in my life. Dr Hemphill did a great job leading the seminary. He was (still is) a humble, strong man with a passion for the Gospel. He was not a lightning rod of controversy bringing negative attention to the seminary. Dr Hemphill sought to bridge divisions and bring healing. It was a sweet time for me after leaving all behind and starting a new path across the country. Pouring myself into our local church, Wedgwood Baptist was life changing. Setting myself aside for ministry and building lifelong friendships is something I will never regret. I cannot speak to the current situation except the stats and trends are very telling and have been consistently declining. The controversial headlines (Dr Klouda unanimous board affirmation & then firing & then lawsuit, Tarrant Association building lawsuit, cancellation of the licensure program for counseling, closing of the Naylor Children’s Center, Muslim PhD student controversy, push for removal of Calvinist profs, . . .) Appears SWBTS needs new leadership and a fresh direction.
To be accurate, the statistical decline of SWBTS began in the last five years of Hemphill (1998-2003) and then continued under Patterson (2003-)
1995-1996 3,024
1996-1997 3,052
1997-1998 3,099
1998-1999 2,784
1999-2000 2,441
2000-2001 2,371
2001-2002 2,381
2002-2003 2,209
2003-2004 2,202
2004-2005 1,991
Some of the decline under Hemphill was due to the fact that Southern and Southeastern had become more conservative by the late 1990s. Before that time a lot of conservative students from from the southeast and mid-South went to SWBTS because it was the most conservative school. But once Southern and Southeastern became more conservative, they preferred to stay closer to home. Also, Southern hired a lot more prestigious scholars who had published a lot of books. Hemphill was a nice guy, but kind of bland, and didn’t give SWBTS much of an identity.
So a lot of the decline at SWBTS happened under Hemphill. Patterson came to SWBTS promising to turn things around like he did at Southeastern, but instead produced a bunch of negative headlines that caused prospective students to stay away.
It was around the late 90’s, that Southern and Southeastern (after years of turmoil) both became more stable and thus more attractive to students from the east, so that point is taken.
But, I would also suggest that another reason for the decline of SWBTS enrollment during the latter Hemphill years was probably the rise of Truett Seminary at Baylor which gave more moderate students (who also used to go to SWBTS in larger numbers) a place to go to seminary in Texas.
So, SWBTS lost both conservative students from the east and moderate students from southwest.
Jeff, I do believe that you are right in your analysis (at least in part).
When I went to SWBTS it was far and away the largest. But Southern and SEBTS (and MBTS) were pumping out some pretty sadly liberal theologians and people were warning their young preacher-boys to stay away. NOBTS got some and so did Golden Gate. But SWBTS got the vast majority.
When the CR brought our six seminaries under the BF&M again, there was a smorgasbord! There’s a variety of choices. Southern serves one flavor, Southeastern another. Cajun spices are served in New Orleans. Dr. Allen has gotten things rolling at MBTS (remember when people were GRIPING about them hiring him – looks foolish now). And Gateway seems to be doing good things. I don’t hear much about it since they are on the other side of the world, but their satellite system seems to be working.
So, Southwestern has a LOT of competition in the Preacher Boy sweepstakes.
I am sure that the moderate/liberal CBF-type seminaries popping up bled a few more students away.
One other thing that no one has mentioned. Back in my day (before fire was discovered) an SBC pastor HAD to go to an SBC school. Now, it’s not so. A degree from any number of seminaries (or no degree) suffices.
It’s a new world.
I still think churches do well to give preference to graduates of SBC seminaries, especially if they have been and want to continue to be denominationally connected. Any aspiring SBC pastor who asks my opinion, I would encourage him to attend one of our six SBC seminaries. I did not know much about the SBC before attending Southeastern. Now I know and care quite a bit about SBC matters. Maybe I was brainwashed at Southeastern. I like to think I was informed.
“The rise of nondenominational churches… means that fewer pastors are required to hold a seminary degree… though they may still want some level of theological study or formation.”
http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/november/moody-bible-spokane-extension-campus-fuller-seminary-online.html
Many SBC churches have lost young adults to nondenominational churches, and these SBC churches will not be able to support a full-time, seminary-educated pastor in the future. At the same, the nondenominational churches are not requiring seminary degrees for their pastors and staff.
Does anyone know where to find the enrollment statistics by gender at Southwesteern? Particularly on the grad level, not college level or below (such as the homemaking degree.) I would love to see if the male/female ratios have stayed more-or-less constant during Dr. Patterson’ tenure. I’m wondering if the Klouda controversy discouraged females wanting a seminary education from considering SWBTS. Don’t know. That’s why I would like to see statistics.
Mary Ann,, I believe you can find the information you seek on the website of the Association of Theological Schools. ATS is one of the entities that accredits Southwestern Seminary, and all the SBC seminaries.