Adapted from a Bexley Seabury press release
Bexley Seabury Seminary Foundation has announced that it will change from a two-campus school to a single campus beginning with its Fall 2016 term.
Bexley Seabury’s campus in Columbus, Ohio, began collaborating with Trinity Lutheran Seminary in 1999, and offering a master of divinity degree with Trinity in 2004. Its agreement with Trinity continues through Spring Term 2016. The change, adopted unanimously by the foundation’s board, moves Bexley Seabury’s MDiv program from Columbus to Chicago.
The move was recommended to the board by Bexley Seabury’s seven-member Beyond Walls Task Force.
“Consolidating Bexley Seabury’s operations in Chicago will bring new energy and focus to our work and, I am confident, will create still more choice and flexibility in course offerings while continuing to provide the kind of rich community life that has been one of the Columbus program’s greatest strengths,” said the Rt. Rev. W. Michie Klusmeyer, Bishop of West Virginia and chairman of the foundation’s board. “We are proud of and grateful for what will have been a 17-year collaboration with Trinity Lutheran Seminary. This is a grace-filled and mission-faithful time.”
In Chicago, Bexley Seabury’s classes meet at the same campus that houses the national office of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Bexley Seabury President Roger Ferlo sees the decision as a significant ecumenical step.
“The Trinity–Bexley Seabury alliance demonstrated the deep wisdom of the ‘Called to Common Mission’ agreement, entered into by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Episcopal Church in 2000. Our partnership has shown how two faith traditions can each benefit when we live into the Gospel together,” Ferlo said. “We look forward to deepening these ecumenical ties — a hallmark of the Bexley Hall experience—in the richly diverse theological culture of Chicago.”
Image: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s headquarters also hosts Bexley Seabury’s campus, near O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. • Wikimapia.org
