Seminary Notes

                                                                                                                   Vol. VI, No. 9, December 1993

SE Enrollment Jumps

Enrollment at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary have reached the highest level in five years. New students nearly doubled from last year and are at the highest level since 1985. 254 new students enrolled this Fall semester, bringing total enrollment to 688, compared to 628 last Fall. "We feel this is just the beginning," said registrar Sheldon Alexander. "We are expecting over 100 new students in the Spring semester." If Alexander's prediction proves correct, it will mark the first time in the seminary's history that enrollment increased from the Fall to Spring semesters. [SE release]

SBC Seminaries Increase Enrollment

 The number of students enrolled in credit courses at the six SBC seminaries is up eight percent this fall. Five reported increases ranging from 28% to 3%; only one, Southern, reported a decrease (4%). New Orleans reported 28% more students reflecting growth in its baccalaureate and pre-baccalaureate programs from 269 last year to 506 this year. Southeastern grew 10%, Golden Gate and Midwestern 15% each, and Southwestern by 4%.

Southern Announces $5 Million Gifts

Southern Seminary on 14 October announced a $2.7 million pledge from Faye Stone, widow of Judge A.P. Stone of Springfield, MO, to endow the seminary's new Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism, and Church Growth. The next day Walter and Georgia Chiles of Eustis, FL, committed $2 million to the seminary, their second significant gift within a year. Last December the Chileses committed $2.2 million for endowed professorships and a scholarship fund for foreign students. [ BP]

Southern Drops Sponsorship

Southern President Albert Mohler announced that the seminary has dropped its sponsorship of a conference on women in the church, not because of the topic, but due to the major speakers and program direction. The keynote speakers recently selected by a joint planning committee are Letty Russell of Yale Divinity School and Mercy Oduyoye, a native of Ghana active with the World Council of Churches. Mohler commented, "This conference represents and ideological and theological agenda committed to feminist theology in the mainline Protestant churches. It is not an appropriate forum for evangelicals to discuss the role of women in the church." [BPI

Midwestern Trustees Deny Tenure

Meeting 18-19 October and by a vote of 24:9 trustees of Midwestern Seminary denied tenure to Wilburn T. Stancil, 44, associate professor of Christian theology since 1989. Trustees expressed reservations about Stancil's views on inerrancy, rebaptism, and the historicity of Genesis 1-3, among other concerns. Seminary President Milton Ferguson had recommended to the full board that tenure be granted in spite of a 5:0 vote by the trustees' instruction committee against tenure. [BP]