Preparing for Launch:

Update on the Meadville Lombard Educational Model

May 4, 2009

We are preparing for the launch of our new academic program in the fall. Our new educational model is rich with experiential learning in community and congregational settings. (Read more about the Meadville Lombard Educational Model here.)

Our faculty continue to work with a group of local ministers who have agreed to be Teaching Pastors for students enrolled in our campus format. As Teaching Pastors, they will direct work in the congregational setting and provide opportunities for feedback and reflection as the student progresses through the program. We are so grateful to the Revs. Emmy Lou Belcher, Brian Covell, Jennifer Owen-O'Quill and Alan Taylor for their input and support.

Faculty and staff representatives have been traveling to District events over the last month and we continue to hear the same feedback from lay leaders and ministers alike about this new educational model: that it will provide the kind of leadership experience our congregations will require in the 21st century. Dr. Sharon Welch has met with ministers to answer questions about how we will be providing this basic, yet progressive, model of “learning while doing” and how we are requiring our students to begin their ministerial formation in interfaith, multiracial and multicultural community placements.

One of the changes in our new educational model is that we will only have one Master of Divinity degree program, but we will have two options by which students may avail themselves: the Campus and TouchPoint formats. In the Campus format, students live in or near Chicago, take semester-long courses in addition to one or two week-long intensive courses, and do their practical work in community and congregational placements here, near the school. In the TouchPoint, or distance-learning, format, our students travel to Chicago for orientation, for week-long intensive courses in January and/or the summer, and then do their practical work in placements near their home.

Because of our change to one format, we now have one starting date for all of our incoming students which allows us a clearer picture of our enrollment numbers. While we continue to accept applications for the Fall of 2009, our current enrollment figures are beyond where we were last year at this time. We note this as we hear from other seminaries of our size that their enrollment figures are lower than they were last year. The other news about our enrollment is that we have brisk interest in the TouchPoint format that allows intensive classroom experience with our incredible faculty and peers but does not require them to relocate to Chicago.

This new Master of Divinity program--both Campus and TouchPoint formats--draws heavily on our more than ten years of experience and success with the Modified Residency Program, our previous distance-learning format which also provided continual, practical experience throughout.

We would like to lift up Justin Schroeder, MDiv '07 as an example of the type of success our Modified Residency Program has produced. Justin graduated from Meadville Lombard in 2007 and only two years later he has been called as Senior Minister of First Universalist Church of Minneapolis, one of our denomination's larger churches. While we would like to claim the praise for this accomplishment, we know that Justin's lifetime experience in Unitarian Universalism and his devotion to multigenerational engagement laid the groundwork for his continued success. Still, we believe that the educational process in which Justin took part also influenced his ability to provide deep yet diverse theological themes in a way that connects with people of all generations.

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Contact:
Tina Porter
(773) 256-3000 ext. 236