Good News from BTSR

[Gene Scarborough]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Dave Roberts]

I cannot speak to all of the vision, but a couple of elements include getting the seminary out of the business of being a landlord. One current building of BTSR has a floor devoted to dorm room housing. Another complete building provides rental apartments. Our son spend three years in one of the apartments, and in 60-year-old buildings, there is a constant maintenance challenge. BTSR is also the landlord to CBFVA and has a large dining room/reception room in Virginia Hall that is seldom used. J. Sargent Reynolds Community College is also meeting in other buildings once used by the Presbyterian School of Christian Education prior to its merger with Union Seminary.

The seminary has already entered collaborative arrangements with Virginia Commonwealth University to offer dual degrees for an M.Div/MSSW in social work. This has attracted some students. They are also working with a traditionally African-American institution, St. Paul's College. There were discussions with NC's Chowan University, but those did not lead anywhere. I'm not certain about other partnerships.

Part of the vision, as I understand it from discussions with a former trustee, is to create facilities that are more suited to a free-standing seminary. They have been in a library partnership with Union since BTSR's beginning. With the completion of the digitalization of Princeton's theological library, they will be able to have library access in a partnership with them that will not require a " bricks-and-mortar library. In addition, classrooms need to be updated to be fully electronic learning centers and oriented more toward collegial learning styles than to function as lecture halls. Additionally, the seminary wants to interface with the whole electronic learning environment that is available.

Hope that is of some help, Ed.

[Gene Scarborough]

Very educational, Dave!

My greatest concern at SEBTS was the lack of an adequae library for true graduate research.

At Emory, I had access to a multitude of top libraries with the latest research journals easily available. The Chandler Shool of Theology had one / the College had one / the Medical Library was the best that could be found.

At SEBTS, there were few journals in 1967 and many books which ran some 10 years behind original research. I often wondered, "How is anyone to be up-to-date with this poor variety for research?" They did the best they could, but it was far below par in my view. It takes large sums of money to have any good library---before the advent of the Internet and shared libraries.

My Seminary experience was more akin to college-level courses than real graduate education. At the Masters level, students normally become partners in education with their professors. I knew a number of students with college degrees in religion who were simply turning in papers they did in college. A Psychology Major, like myself, had to do them from scratch!

It appears that BTSR is significantly improving on what I had in my student days for an MDiv.

[Dave Roberts]

When I was at SBTS (1968-72), the library was good. There were admittedly not enough copies of some books that were very popular with professors, but they bought well. Journals were pretty well up to date. It is a real challenge though to maintain a library.

One of BTSR's larger expenses has been membership for all students in the Hugh Morton Smith Library at Union Seminary in Richmond. It is an excellent theological library. I'm not fully a fan of digitized copies of resources, but it appear the only economic way for smaller institutions in the future. Of course, it's a generational thing. My son buys very few books. He simply gets them on his computer and IPad. Guess I need to catch up. A 92-year-old challenged me yesterday to get a Kindle like the one she has.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Dave Roberts]

Boyce Library was fully running when I was there. My wife worked in cataloging for three years, so I knew it well.

I am pro BTSR, in part because our son graduated there. He received good preparation for ministry through the school. I was pleased with how it helped him. As far as living quarters, Richmond seems to have a fairly large number of rental properties in the metro area that would be good for students. Also, more of the students are not living in seminary housing these days than did a few years ago. It seems that is one of their considerations because of their metro area location.

I lived in Fuller for four years, so I appreciate both the good and bad of campus housing.

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]