By Bob Allen
Central Baptist Theological Seminary ranked second among the fastest-growing seminaries in North America, according to a new report by the Association of Theological Schools.
The seminary in Shawnee, Kan., has grown by nearly 180 percent during the past five years. Molly T. Marshall, in her 11th year as seminary president, credited new degree programs and delivery systems for a 2014 enrollment of 287.
“We have been strategic by experimenting within the already approved program offerings,” she said in the article. Two of the most successful programs have been fully funded to recruit and build cohorts of students.
The CREATE program, master of divinity degree program targeting entrepreneurial and highly motivated adults in the 22-35 age range launched in fall 2009, has added 12 new students each year for six years.
A women’s leadership initiative is following the same model, seeking to empower hand-picked female students to crack the “stained-glass ceiling” that still exists in moderate Baptist churches that affirm women in ministry but hire them only for jobs other than senior pastor.
Marshall also attributed Central’s growth success to its nine off-campus sites — four of them for Korean language students and all with integrated online learning and an active social media program.
“We have learned that it is absolutely critical to try to offer relevant and contextual theological education to support the school’s mission and values,” she said.
About 37 percent of ATS member schools have grown during the past five years. Among the 100 schools that have grown, 34 have grown at least 25 percent, and of those 12 have grown by at least 50 percent.
The report said why certain seminaries are growing is difficult to discern.
“There is no silver bullet,” said Daniel Aleshire, executive director of ATS. “The reasons that some schools have enjoyed extraordinary enrollment growth during the past five years are idiosyncratic. Each growing school has its own success story to tell.”
The No. 1 fastest-growing seminary, Baptist Missionary Association Theological Seminary in Jackson, Texas, summed up the reason for a 94 percent enrollment growth over five years to one word: convenience.
Philip Attebery, dean of the school started by the Baptist Missionary Association of America in 1954, said students are increasingly choosing online options over extension sites, valuing the convenience of time as much as location.
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of six seminaries owned by the Southern Baptist Convention, also ranked among the 12 fastest growing ATS schools.
Jason Allen, president of the seminary in Kansas City, Mo., since 2012, said online learning and growing numbers of Korean, Hispanic and African-American students have contributed to growth, but he believes the most important strides forward have been “convictional and missiological.”
“We have repurposed the institution to give its very best energies to serving the local Southern Baptist church,” Allen said. “Our doctrinal convictions and our missiological clarity both have accelerated our growth.”
“Everyone knows precisely who we are, what our theological convictions are, and what we see as our chief ambition,” he said, “to train pastors, ministers and evangelists for the church.”
Central Baptist Theological Seminary was established in 1901 as a cooperative venture jointly sponsored by Northern and Southern Baptists. In 1956 the seminary’s directors voted to relate solely to what today is known as American Baptist Churches USA. Two years later the Southern Baptist Convention opened Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
In 1994 Central Seminary reaffirmed ties with American Baptists, while expressing “full support” to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a group formed in 1990 by moderates disenfranchised by a decade of infighting with SBC conservatives.
Marshall, the first woman to teach theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, stepped down in 1994, after the seminary’s new president threatened to bring her up for heresy charges.
She joined the faculty of Central Seminary in 1995 and in 2004 was elected as the school’s 10th president. She inherited an 82-year-old campus that was too large and in need of $5 million in deferred maintenance.
She led the seminary to cut costs by releasing a third of the faculty and half of the staff. In 2006 trustees voted to sell the old inner-city campus and move to a smaller and more modern facility in the suburbs.
Using a $2 million gift from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation, Central broke ground for the Baugh-Marshall Chapel in 2009, dedicating the building and sponsoring an open house in 2011.