wfn.org | Senate Defines Church-Related

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3033 notes).

Note 3033 by UMNS on June 25, 1996 at 16:15 Eastern (5135 characters).

SEARCH: university, senate, church-related, educational

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CONTACT: Linda Green                           319(10-22-71){3033}
         Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470             June 25, 1996

University Senate defines marks 
of church-related institution

     SALEM, Ore. (UMNS) -- The 25 members of the denomination's
University Senate, used their last meeting of the quadrennium,
here, to strengthen a document that clearly defines the marks of a
United Methodist church-related institution.
     During the June 20-21 meeting, senate members, a group of
educational professionals who review and approve affiliation of
educational institutions with the United Methodist Church, revised
and approved "The Marks of a United Methodist Church-related
Academic Institution." 
     The document results from a quadrennium of work by a task
force that studied church-school relations among institutions that
carry the name of the United Methodist Church.
     Prepared by the Rev. Dennis Campbell, dean of Duke University
Divinity School, Durham, N.C., the report is to be a guide to the
next senate as it continues the discussion on church-relatedness
and the role it will have in the next century. 
     The organizational meeting of the 1997-2000 University Senate
will be Jan. 9-10 in Nashville.
     The Rev. Fred Blumer, president of the senate, said the
"marks" document is an example of how the senate strives to make
church-school relations concrete and specific while preserving the
diversity that the United Methodist Church always has enjoyed.
     According to Campbell, the United Methodist Church has more
colleges, universities, technological schools and college
preparatory schools related to it than any other Protestant
church. Currently there are 124 schools, colleges, universities
and seminaries that have formal relationships to the denomination.
     In the report, Campbell, also the group's secretary, noted
that the senate was formed in 1892 as an accrediting body. He said
that in recent years, the senate's task has "become less one of
accreditation" but "more review of the way in which institutions
in fact relate to the Church."
     He said, while there is a difference in relationship --
history, geography, structure, finances -- "there are marks of
church relationship that should be evident in an institution to be
related meaningfully to the United Methodist Church."
     Among the eight "marks" approved by the University Senate
are:
     * a church-related institution identifies itself as such in
printed materials, official listings and mission statements;
     * an institution willingly allows faculty and students to
explore the place of religious belief and practice, and
specifically the intellectual dimensions of Christian faith, in
all academic disciplines and co-curricular activities;
     * an institution recognizes the Social Principles of the
United Methodist Church;
     * an institution seeks to create a community of scholarship
and learning that facilitates social justice and practice.
     In other business, the senate reviewed its work for the
current quadrennium. Blumer said the members are "not an old boys
club" or "a fraternity of like-minded partisans protecting self-
interest" but a "collegium of professionals, who became friends,
united by mutual respect and important work." 
     He said during the past four years, the agency has become "a
mystical union of reverence for wisdom, for Sophia, for what is
holy in academe."
     Evaluating the Senate's work, Blumer said he was especially
appreciative of its cooperative working arrangement with the
churchwide commissions on Religion and Race and Status and Role of
Women. Both agencies wanted to participate with the senate when it
reviews United Methodist seminaries for inclusiveness. 
     While the body "has not achieved everything we see that needs
attention," Blumer said, the organization "has made steps in the
right direction on some perennial problems." 
     As an example, he cited the difficulties of cooperation among
church agencies because of different or overlapping mandates or
obligations to other agencies. He said some of these institutions
are "not free to become the institutions they could become because
they are having to serve too many masters." 
     According to the Rev. Roger Ireson, chief staff executive of
the denomination's Board of Higher Education and Ministry, the
University Senate is "one of the anchors of the church." He said
it has gone the farthest in defining what it means to be church-
related. 
     The senate is in many respects "a bridge" that holds the
world of academia and the church together, Ireson said. "The
senate ... has allowed people to walk across the bridge of
knowledge to a world of faith."
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