KANSAS CITY, Kan. (ABP) — A cash-strapped Central Baptist Theological Seminary is significantly reducing its main-campus staff and faculty while establishing a network of satellite campuses in a bid to make its educational offerings more accessible.
Acting on a plan proposed by new seminary President Molly Marshall, the seminary's board of trustees voted in mid-May to approve the staff reductions at the Kansas City, Kan., school, and to establish satellite centers in four Midwestern and Southern states.
“It's really just having to re-align things, given our financial situation,” said Lisa Wimberly Allen, who along with her husband was recently elected the school's co-dean and vice president for administration. Like many other non-profit organizations in recent years, Central has struggled to maintain its income stream from donors.
Eight staff positions have already been eliminated, Allen said, with those employees' final day scheduled to be May 31. According to Dean Allen, the reduction leaves the seminary with a full-time non-academic staff of 10.
In addition, out of a current faculty of 12, as many as four positions will be eliminated. Allen said which faculty leave will be jointly determined by administrators and the faculty itself. “This is not at all punitive,” she said. “We value these people very deeply; it's been hard on us to do this.”
Allen said the cuts were also done in the interest of making the school's new satellite-campus project possible. Under the plan, Central will partner with local congregations and denominational organizations to offer master's-level courses at centers in Wisconsin, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
According to Allen, the classes at those locations and their form of delivery will vary, depending “on the type of course and the pedagogical needs for the course.” For example, classes may be taught by faculty on the Kansas City campus via the Internet or video broadcasts sent to the centers, or by local contract faculty.
The partnering organizations are the American Baptist Churches of Wisconsin in Milwaukee; Benson Baptist Church in Omaha, Neb.; First Baptist Church in Oklahoma City; and First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Central Seminary, established in 1901, was historically associated with the American Baptist Churches. But, in the 1990s, many students and faculty from Southern Baptist backgrounds came to the seminary after fundamentalists solidified control over Southern Baptist Convention schools, including nearby Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Since then, Central has become one of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's partner schools for theological education.
Jeff Langford, the CBF of Missouri's associate coordinator, said the reductions were regrettable, but necessary. “From my perspective, I think Central is moving in the right direction,” he said. “This is probably not something that needed to happen in this way, but in other ways prior to this. I think they were probably overstaffed in some ways for the number of students they had.”
But one local seminary supporter wondered if it was a sign of the school's demise. “When you cut out your whole development department, that sends a signal in and of itself for long-term prospects,” said Bill Hill, pastor of Wornall Road Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo., and a former administrator at Central. “It really gives you pause to wonder what in the heck is going to happen to them.”