wfn.org | Lutherans, Presbyterians Celebrate Shared Seminary Campus

[News News <NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

February 20, 2003

LUTHERANS, PRESBYTERIANS CELEBRATE SHARED SEMINARY CAMPUS
03-29-KC*

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
(LSTC), a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
(ELCA), and McCormick Theological Seminary, a seminary of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), are completing construction this month
of McCormick's new offices on the LSTC campus.	Ceremonies on Feb. 27
and 28 will cap 18 months of construction and 28 years of
collaboration.
     Following a worship service and ceremonial walk to the campus
on Feb. 27, McCormick faculty and staff will be welcomed by faculty,
staff and students of LSTC.  Faculty and staff of the Presbyterian
seminary are to take residence in the new three-story,
40,000-square-foot facility Feb. 28.
     The McCormick building will connect to the three-story,
U-shaped Lutheran school, forming the northern border of the Lutheran
Seminary's courtyard. The courtyard covers a new underground parking
garage, equipped with a heated, snow-melting entrance and exit ramp,
that the two schools will share.  LSTC leased the land for the
building to McCormick in 2000.
     This latest cooperative venture continues a partnership which
began when McCormick moved from Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood
to the Hyde Park neighborhood in 1975.	At the time the two
theological institutions agreed to share classroom space and combine
library resources for shared ownership of the Jesuit-Krauss-McCormick
Library.
     More recently the two institutions pooled Lilly Foundation
grant money for upgrading technological resources for instruction and
research.  They now share a joint technology team and a three-year,
$505,000 grant from The Teagle Foundation of New York to explore new
ways to share administrative and physical resources and to encourage
and assist neighboring Chicago seminaries to do the same.
     In 1998 the ELCA entered into a relationship of "full
communion" with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in
America and United Church of Christ.  The agreement allows the
exchange of ministers and encourages the denominations to share
heritages of worship, service and education.
     LSTC prepares pastors, lay professionals and theological
educators for the church by offering degree programs leading to the
master of arts, master of divinity, master of theology, doctor of
ministry and doctor of philosophy.  The seminary is affiliated with
the University of Chicago and the Association of Chicago Theological
Schools.
-- -- --
     The home page for the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago is
at http://www.lstc.edu/ on the Internet.  The home page for McCormick
Theological Seminary is at http://www.mccormick.edu/ on the Web.

* Kathleen Chekel is director for marketing and communications at the
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
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