Luther Seminary : 2001 Seminar
Navigating Uncharted Waters
As soon as he lifted his finger from the mouse, he realized he had launched his half thought-out missive to the whole community—faculty, staff, and students. He had intended only to seek corroboration from his colleague, Williams, but with e-mail there was no forgiveness. He would have to bear the brunt of whatever critique ensued. It would not be pleasant, he told himself. How stupid to reply to anything that came as a listserv. He could swear that he meant his words to be private, but even now they were already being read on some of the 800 accounts to which his fate was linked.
Professor Stegner moved the cursor to the Sent file, clicked once, and watched his own words fill the screen:
Getting this seminary to do anything new is like getting a Super Tanker to change course. Nothing around here ever happens without at least a dozen people pushing with all their might to overcome the inertia of 135 years of history. Miraculously, we've come to that point. Take the new strategic plan. It has been adopted. It's ‘our' plan now, and nothing is going to stop us from being steered in a new direction. I pity those who still think that we're in some safe harbor. Those days are long over. We're in uncharted waters.
What did you think of the discussion in the faculty meeting yesterday? I was floored when Johannsen spoke up and said he would rather retire than be forced to put any of his courses online. I don't believe his threats for a minute. He's kept the rest of the faculty on a short leash for years. How far into this new century will we be before he realizes we've left port? And what about Wilder? Doesn't she know it's risky for a non-tenured faculty member to be so critical of the teaching style of a lot of our colleagues? I hope she lasts.
And speaking of which, what do you think of the new arrangement of Associate Deans and Division Chairs? Is this seminary really serious about inaugurating an organization plan that isn't top-down? Amazing. I pray to God we know where we are headed. Or should I say, I pray God knows where we're headed?
When you can, let's check coordinates on all this. Stegner
The next morning there were 43 e-mails in his inbox. He scrolled the list, looking for a good place to begin. Finding the one from Williams, he clicked once to open.
Stegner, you fool. Do you see what you've done? You've put in print everything I've been thinking. Are you faring all right? Tell me our colleagues are tame and took your impetuous broadcast in the spirit of the 8th Commandment. Maybe now we can talk about how all these changes are affecting each of us. You liken us to a Super Tanker, but I think we're more like a hurriedly re-commissioned battleship. There's not a one of us who isn't swamped with work already. I'd give anything for a few more hours in the day. I know I've put you off more than once when you needed to talk. ‘There's always e-mail,' you say. Ha! Let's have coffee after chapel where we can talk in private. W.
Buoyed by the tone of his colleague's response, Stegner swallowed hard and opened the e-mail from the Academic Dean.
Jon, I see the e-mail's ubiquitous capacity entrapped you, too. Don't worry. I've done the same more than once.
The only thing I question is your assumption that 12 faculty ever agree on anything. That's not been our history. We argue and debate. We threaten to dig in our heels, but when the time is right, it's heave-ho on all sides. You'll see. Think about the changes that have happened in the five years you've been here.
In 1996 our academic technology budget was almost non-existent. Now it equals the cost of at least ten senior faculty salaries and is growing. Back then we hardly thought about lifelong learning except as a small add-on. By next year it will be a major program. When you arrived, we had one of the strongest systematic theology faculties in the country. Now we are limping with four retirements and only one addition in the field. Over the same years the Leadership Division grew from a collection of individuals working in isolation to becoming the most collaborative and progressive division in the seminary. You know the implications of all the changes in contextual education better than I, not to mention the changes in the faculty profile itself. Counting you, we've added 13 persons—six are women, four are lay, three are from communions other than Lutheran, and two are persons of color. I hardly call that inertia.
I call it obedience, Jon. It's the obedience worked in us by the Spirit of God, through which Luther Seminary and each of us is being disciplined and renewed according to God's purposes as revealed and accomplished in Jesus the Christ. In chapel I give thanks for that every day. Many of us do.
Following that, he opened another from his colleague in the Bible Division.
Steg, I share your frustration, but I want to remind you of a seminar I regularly offered with Johannsen several years back. I was startled the first day when he asked the class to state what they needed to know. It was a seminar about studying the Confessions for the sake of Christian mission.
His first comments were, as best I can remember, along these lines: If your preparation is directed toward Christian ministry, what do you need to know about the Confessions? I can tell you a lot about the Confessions, but I don't know that you need to know what I know in order to confess faithfully in Christian ministry in this age. So, what do you want to learn and why do you want to learn it? Who needs or wants what you might learn? For whom are you learning?
And you know what? He made the students address those issues throughout the term. I was amazed how he kept on opening up questions rather than allowing the students to close down conversations simply because they shared unexamined assumptions. God was present in that seminar and we confessed, but that was not an easy task, certainly not one that could be reduced to a handy set of methodological steps. Johannsen may not be willing to teach online, but he knows a thing or two about focusing on student learning and keeping an eye on Christian ministry. And those are the things that are really important whether we're talking about classroom or online learning. Joe Galuski
The next two e-mails he read were from students. The first was sent by a Middler he had had in class the year before.
Professor Stegner, I'll bet you didn't mean to send that e-mail to all of us. I hope you don't mind that I read it. What you said about Dr. Johannsen made me laugh. He's my advisor and is like that in class, too. He grumbles and fusses. He tells us that there have been so many changes at the seminary that if it weren't for him we wouldn't even be required to take Confessions anymore. I don't know if that's true or not, but I wanted you to know that when my dad died last fall, he drove all the way to Iowa for the funeral. I'll never forget that. He may be old fashioned, but he's shown me what it means to be a Christian leader.
The second came from a first-year student.
Dr. Stegner, I read your e-mail about all the changes happening at Luther Seminary. There's something you didn't mention. It is something important to me, but no one else seems interested. I grew up as a Catholic. I came to realize that the church that schooled me in spirituality and taught me to care about social justice would never acknowledge my call to ordained ministry as a woman. Through my friendship with some Lutherans (including a bishop), I am now at Luther Seminary. All that is good. However, whenever I speak about spiritual discernment, about social justice, or even about my devotional life, other students ridicule me. They say I'm still trying to impress God with my works. My concerns don't have anything to do with new deans or online courses. They have to do with how we live our lives as Christians in this place. It's so heady, so intellectual here. I wonder if there's room for a woman like me at Luther?
The next one he opened was from Miriam Wilder.
Are you sorry your e-mail came flying off to all of us? It is rather embarrassing when we mortals do things like that. I'm grateful, Jon. This just proves my point about the way the context for learning is changing around here. We must all move toward the lives of real people. Cyberspace is where our culture now resides. All our good intentions about educating persons to be missional leaders won't mean a thing if we don't pay attention to fundamental shifts in the culture itself.
Wittingly or unwittingly, in one keystroke you communicated with everyone at Luther Seminary (except Johannsen, since he adamantly refuses to even have a computer in his office). That capacity suggests that we must reassess all the conventional patterns for teaching and learning. I'm looking for someone to help me fashion a grant proposal on collaborative teaching styles. Are you interested? Let me know. Miriam
He read his way through the remaining e-mails. Most sounded similar to one of the first five he had opened. A few chided him for launching a personal e-mail to the entire community. Others responded to the changes underway at Luther, naming their own fears and hopes about the days ahead.
Finally, Professor Stegner sighed and opened the remaining one. It was from the president.
Let's talk, x211.