Report to Spring Meeting of the GC Executive
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Mission and Health Emphasis in Ministerial Training Curriculum November 19, 2014 Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists David Trim, Ph.D R. William Cash, Ph.D. (Consultant) Galina Stele, D.Min. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................................ v Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 1 Overview ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 Mission Courses ............................................................................................................................................ 7 Health Courses ............................................................................................................................................ 16 Summary ..................................................................................................................................................... 24 Appendix A – Additional Tables ................................................................................................................ 25 Appendix B – Comments .......................................................................................................................... 123 Appendix C – Survey ................................................................................................................................ 131 i Acknowledgements We would like to thank those who took the time to provide the data reported in this study. We also wish to thank the General Conference Associate Secretaries, division Executive Secretaries and others in division offices who aided us by encouraging educational institutions to respond to this survey and facilitating their responses. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the General Conference Education Department in compiling a database of email addresses for institutional presidents, vice- chancellors and principals. iii List of Tables Table 1 - Respondents by division identifying how many institutions offer ministerial training .......... 2 Table 2 - Summary of bachelor degree programs, by institution within division .................................. 3 Table 3 - Summary of professional programs, by institution within division ........................................ 5 Table 4 - Summary of masters programs, by institution within division ................................................ 6 Table 5 - Summary of doctoral programs, by institution within division ............................................... 7 Table 6 - Number of mission courses by level, by institution within division ....................................... 7 Table 7 - Mission colloquiums offered by level within division ............................................................ 9 Table 8 - Institutions offering mission colloquiums each year ............................................................... 9 Table 9 - Proportion of bachelor degree curriculum devoted to studies by division ............................ 10 Table 10 - Proportion of professional degree curriculum by category within division ........................ 10 Table 11 - Proportion of masters courses in studies, by division ......................................................... 11 Table 12 - Proportion of doctoral programs by studies ........................................................................ 11 Table 13 – Mission faculty by division ................................................................................................. 12 Table 14 - Required mission courses at each level, by institution within division ............................... 12 Table 15 - Number of health courses by level, by institution within division ...................................... 16 Table 16 – Colloquiums that include the health message offered by level within division ................. 18 Table 17 - Institutions offering health colloquiums each year ............................................................. 18 Table 18 - Proportion of bachelor degree curriculum devoted to studies by division .......................... 19 Table 19 - Proportion of professional degree curriculum by category ................................................. 19 Table 20 - Proportion of masters courses in studies ............................................................................. 19 Table 21 - Proportion of doctoral programs by studies ........................................................................ 20 Table 22 - Health faculty by division ................................................................................................... 20 Table 23 – Required health courses at each level, by institution within division ................................. 21 Table 24 - Institutions surveyed, with response and ministerial training status ................................... 25 Table 25 - Mission courses by division and institution ........................................................................ 27 Table 26 - Faculty instructors of mission courses by division and institution .................................... 101 Table 27 - Health courses by division and institution ......................................................................... 108 Table 28 - Health faculty by division and institution ......................................................................... 118 v Mission and Health Emphasis in Ministerial Training Curriculum Introduction At the request of the General Conference Officers, the Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research conducted a comprehensive survey of the Seventh-day Adventist colleges and universities to ascertain the degree to which courses in mission and health1 were incorporated in the ministerial training programs in these institutions. These ministerial training programs (including those that are intended to train chaplains) could be bachelor (e.g. BA or BTh), professional (typically MDiv), masters (MA or equivalent), or doctoral (DMin, PhD or ThD) degrees. An online survey (see Appendix C) was developed and presented to the college and university presidents at the Presidents’ Council at the church’s world headquarters in March 2014, and launched with an email note to each of these presidents on April 9.2 While initially, the expectation was to have sufficient responses by mid-June, it became necessary to extend the time of the survey through September 21 in order to have an adequate number of responses. At that time, there were 98 institutional responses (see Table 1) from among the 103 institutions listed in the 2014 Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook plus four responses from institutions not listed in the current Yearbook, for a total of 102 responses (there were six non-respondents from a list of 108 institutions provided by the Department of Education). Table 24 in Appendix A provides a complete list of the institutions contacted, whether or not a response was received, whether or not they offer ministerial program(s), and if they do, whether they offer one or more mission or health courses. The tables showing the results of the study are either aggregated or listed by world division. The General Conference institutions (Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies, Adventist University of Africa, Andrews University, and Loma Linda University) are listed separately, as their numbers skew the results for the divisions in which they are located. The results shown here are those submitted by the respondents. Where no information is shown, there was no response to the question. Not every institution responded to all the items. No attempt was made to translate the responses provided in another language. Because of the wide variety of educational systems around the world, there is variation among the curricula and credit hour systems of the respondents, which makes it difficult to apply the same criteria in judging all institutions. 1 Courses in mission were defined as those involving the cross-cultural sharing of the Gospel—learning about the culture, behavior, philosophy, and worldview of other people groups. Such courses would include World Mission, World Religions, Theology of Mission, Cultural Anthropology, Urban Mission, Intercultural communication, etc. The courses in health were not defined in the survey, but were expected to be those that cover the church’s health message, as found in the writings of Ellen G. White. 2 Due to the limitations of the online survey, which requested information on six courses each on mission or health, and on six instructional faculty in these disciplines, separate contact was made with those institutions (AU, AIIAS, and LLU) that were known to have courses and/or faculty that exceeded the survey’s limitations. These institutions were provided alternate ways to submit the information being requested on the survey. 1 Table 1 - Respondents by division identifying how many institutions offer ministerial training Number Level Training Offered offering Offer Offer Number of Number Ministerial Masters/ Mission Health Division institutions responding training Bachelor Prof Doctoral Course(s)?