Calvary Baptist Seminary to cease operations in 1 year

I am very sorry circumstances have forced the seminary to close.

This is really sad news. My heart goes out to CBS, the faculty / staff, and student body.

We are losing one of our best seminaries. I can’t explain how much I have appreciated Calvary Lansdale over the years. I never graduated from Calvary, but I had the thrill of taking a Bible Geography class that included a study trip to Israel during the summer of 89’. The reasoning for the school’s closing their doors is solid. Very thankful for Chief Jordan and Dr. Tim and the various leaders who have put in nearly 40 years of faithful ministry. One of the highlights of each year was the annual leadership conference that Calvary Lansdale used to organize. I had the thrill of teaching workshops on various occasions. On a personal note I have been touched by the personal friendships of many who have taught and have studied there in PA. Prayerful the guys teaching will be able to find other ministry positions over the next many months.

Straight Ahead!

jt

This won’t stop at Calvary. Schools that refuse to adjust to a technologically driven society will eventually do the same. Seriously, why would anyone pack up their family to go to one of these seminaries when they can get it all online now? Central…Detroit…

I’ve been in 2 online seminary programs, finishing neither. One is a MAJOR fundamentalist institution. I took OT Introduction. After the class was finished I realized I learned nothing more that mattered…all I got was $600 poorer (that was a while ago!). The second one was much more low key and the same thing happened, only after about 5 classes. I was halfway through a class on the gospel of John when I realized I was learning nothing that I thought was important about the gospel of John. The text was long and wordy, but ultimately said little. I was learning nothing that I wanted to know about John. So…I quit. What good is a piece of paper from a seminary if you learn nothing?

I’m of (at least) two minds about online education. On one side, I definitely agree with James that schools that do not embrace the technological changes that are coming will find it very difficult to remain viable. The current model where expenses go up much faster than inflation, and with multiple schools competing for the same (in many cases dwindling) pool of students is obviously broken and cannot last. On the other side, although I think online works *very* well for some situations, it is not good for all of them, and in some cases, it is only an inferior substitute.

My degrees are in math and computer science, so I can’t really speak to a seminary degree, but for some of the learning (like in a lab setting), the student needs to be present to get the full value. That is certainly not true for lecture-only classes, and classes where the work never needs to be in a lab or shared setting. Communicating with a professor (say, over Skype), turning in classwork, getting results, contributing to a discussion (with a live online forum) can all be done very well online. What may happen would be a situation where well-known universities setup very small satellite facilities where shared learning can be handled, with a couple professors present, and most of the lecturing, etc. is handled by the main professors at the main site, with online students getting the lectures on their computers, and only going to the satellite sites when necessary. I think there are many possibilities, and the future of education will likely look much different than what most of us experienced.

None of this speaks to a poor curriculum, of course. As Mark said, online education can be done quite poorly, but that applies to the traditional model as well. The comments Mark made about his online experience could just as easily have applied to a classroom education.

And, this sub-thread may be getting way off-topic. I don’t even know if the refusal to embrace technology was the main nemesis of Calvary. They mentioned online in their letter, but their problems may have gone way beyond that. Still, I hate to see seminaries close unless they are of the modernist variety.

I agree with your comments. My degrees are math and physics. You simply CANNOT learn physics as a profession outside of the one-on-one mentoring model. You have to learn directly from someone who knows the material inside and out. I suppose you could do it over video link, but it would be less ideal. Many careers require that you practice, practice, practice…often doing it wrong a lot until you start to get the idea. Online ed just doesn’t allow that at present.

[Mark_Smith]

I agree with your comments. My degrees are math and physics. You simply CANNOT learn physics as a profession outside of the one-on-one mentoring model. You have to learn directly from someone who knows the material inside and out. I suppose you could do it over video link, but it would be less ideal. Many careers require that you practice, practice, practice…often doing it wrong a lot until you start to get the idea. Online ed just doesn’t allow that at present.

Mark,

While I agree that a discipline such as Physics is probably NOT suitable for the online environment, I do wonder about your characterization about online ed not allowing a student to ‘practice, practice, practice’ until they ‘get it’. I’m in the process of completing my 3rd online degree, and that hasn’t been my experience at all. Could you expand on why you see it that way? Maybe it’s more an institution-specific issue, rather than the broad characterization [ALL online ed] that you’ve given?

Todd

I meant professions like math or physics (note I said many professions…not a broad all that you imply) where one on one interaction is essential. What are your degrees in?

Earlier with seminary classes I experienced dry lectures, drier than dry. I mean monotone…it was really bad. The worst I’ve ever experienced earning a BS and PhD in physics. Also, the focus of the material was not useful. I can’t say whether the problem was institutional or just me.

I teach general education science classes at a public university. Many students are now primarily on-line for their major classes, especially for non-traditional programs like criminal justice, social work, allied health, etc. The problem is they have to take a few science/math classes for their degree. They have no practice taking a “real” college class that has closed book quizzes, homework, exams that actually require memorization and critical analysis and synthesis, etc. It can get ugly. All too often in my experience on-line classes are way too easy in the sense that many don’t require “hard” work with memorization. Somehow people are getting away from memorization in education. It is a shame because it often leads students to not study…

Since:

The primary factor influencing this historic decision is declining enrollment which produces a disproportionate reliance on contributed revenue for our general operations budget. We can point to any number of factors for the decline: rising student college debt, the multiplication of other good seminaries, the fact that we do not offer a fully online degree, etc. All our best efforts to reverse the decline have met with disappointing results.

AND since there have been other threads (that are still open) discussing the pros and cons of online education Let’s not take this thread in the direction of pros & cons of online education. Thanks

Why is enrollment declining? I mean, there are a few key metrics:

1. How many people would consider going to CBSL (is that the right abbrev. ?) or a similar school? This is the prospective student pool.

2. How many similar schools are there? This is the competitor pool.

3. How do those schools compare on the features prospective students find most important (price, affiliation, doctrinal viewpoint, reputation, location, etc.)? This determines interactions between prospective students and competitors.

Declining enrollment could be a result of a change in any of these 3 questions. Maybe there are just fewer people out their excited to go to a school like CBSL. Or, maybe there are more schools like that, now crowding the market. Or, maybe some other schools in that market niche have made themselves much more attractive somehow. I think “we don’t offer online classes” is too simple, but I admit I haven’t done the market research.

[Mark_Smith]

I teach general education science classes at a public university. Many students are now primarily on-line for their major classes, especially for non-traditional programs like criminal justice, social work, allied health, etc. The problem is they have to take a few science/math classes for their degree. They have no practice taking a “real” college class that has closed book quizzes, homework, exams that actually require memorization and critical analysis and synthesis, etc. It can get ugly. All too often in my experience on-line classes are way too easy in the sense that many don’t require “hard” work with memorization. Somehow people are getting away from memorization in education. It is a shame because it often leads students to not study…

[Charlie]

1. How many people would consider going to CBSL (is that the right abbrev. ?) or a similar school? This is the prospective student pool.

I think it’s CBS. CBTS is Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Minnesota).

I’m thankful for the 5 years I spent working on my M.Div. at Calvary. There were three primary reasons I decided to go to Lansdale. First, Sam Harbin (now the president) had been my youth pastor and senior pastor in Indianapolis and was moving to teach at Calvary the same year I was going to seminary. What made that difficult is that Doug MacLachlan was also moving back to Central the same year. Second, the alumni I knew from Calvary were church planters and were not only good teachers and pastors but also knew how to endure. Third, the library at Calvary was better at that time, in my opinion, than any of the other seminaries I had visited.

The men who taught me at Calvary were of a mixed bag in some respects. There were classic dispensationalists and progressive dispensationalists. Men who had pastoral experience and men who did not. Easier teachers and harder teachers. But what they had in common that impacted my life during those years was (1) a love for students, (2) a determination to test those entering God’s ministry, (3) a desire for excellence, (4) a devotion to the local church, (5) and extraordinary patience in dealing with young whippersnappers like me.

I am sad to see the school close. My take on the decline in some of the fundamentalist seminaries’ enrollment has been the resurgence of the Southern Baptist Convention schools, especially Southern in Louisville (largest in the country now?) and Southeastern in NC. Trinity Seminary has attracted many too, especially due to D. A. Carson’s influence. The resignation of many of the “secondary separation” issue has led to much broader fellowship and opened up new doors that were once thought taboo (and probably for good reason back then).

And on the online issue, Calvary has made several changes in recent years to try to harness technology in this regard. But, again my opinion, it has been too late in that area and probably wouldn’t have had a chance with the surge at Southern and other schools as well. It would be interesting if someone had some stats about where pastoral majors from Northland, Maranatha, BJU, Piedmont, etc., were going now for seminary training. Probably enlightening. There may be a trend now too because of rising student debt (as Calvary cited) for guys to wait or not go at all to seminary. That would be a great loss.