Work Plan
Plan for the Work of ATS
2006-2012
The mission of The Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada is to promote the improvement and enhancement of theological schools to the benefit of communities of faith and the broader public.
In support of this mission, the Association has three core functions that it performs on behalf of graduate, professional theological education in the United States and Canada: leadership education, development of theological education, and communications and data. The Association maintains a plan that identifies targeted areas of work and relates those targeted areas to the functions of the Association. The plan of work extends for six years and is revised biennially; the current plan is based on, and updates, the 2004 version of the plan of work.
Core Functions
Leadership Education. ATS provides a venue for the education of senior administrative officers through conferences and seminars, and the development of faculty through regranting programs and workshops on teaching, writing, research, grant-seeking, and the work of faculty in theological schools.
Issues and Initiatives. The Association conducts applied research and convenes conversations about critical issues in theological education that need to be addressed in order to enhance understanding of theological education or to enable the schools to develop new skills or perspectives necessary for their development and improvement.
Communications and Data. The Association publishes the Bulletin as the formal record of its work; a journal, Theological Education; the Fact Book on Theological Education; and a variety of publications in support of various programs and emphases. The Association and the Commission on Accrediting maintain databases on student attitudes and perceptions and a comprehensive database on the member institutions. These data provide resources that serve the member schools, the media, and the scholarly study of theological education and the theological disciplines.
Targeted Areas of Work
2006-2012
1. Character and Assessment of Learning for Religious Vocation. ATS schools need greater institutional understanding about the kind of learning that religious vocation requires and increased skill in the methods by which the evidence of this kind of learning can be identified. The accrediting standards require schools to identify their educational goals for the degree programs they offer and to demonstrate the way in which and the extent to which students have attained these educational goals. The emerging cultural expectation is that higher education institutions will be able to demonstrate their educational effectiveness, and ATS schools need more skill and facility in determining their educational effectiveness. (Focus time frame: 2001-2006)
2. Technology and Educational Practices. ATS schools need to make the transitions necessary to accommodate and maximize the use of information technology to enhance educational practices and institutional administration. Educational practices are emerging that utilize developments in information and educational technologies, and teaching and learning in higher education are being transformed. As ATS schools develop the necessary infrastructure, faculty will need to adjust their teaching and course development to accommodate new technologies for accessing information, and administrative leaders will need to learn how to use the information available to them to enhance institutional planning, evaluation, and advancement. Libraries are also changing as a function of information technology. ATS will provide a clearing house for information about the application of these technologies, a venue for peer education, and ongoing assessment of the educational implications of these technologies for theological education. (Focus time frame: 2002-2008)
3. Theological Schools and the Church. ATS will contribute to the renewed attention of member schools to the fundamental patterns of relationship between theological schools and their respective religious communities. As theological education has matured through the century, and as church bodies have changed, fewer schools have the embedded relationships to religious bodies that they once had. Over the past thirty years, denominational funding for most mainline Protestant schools has decreased, and many, if not most, are educating students from a wide range of denominational traditions who expect to return to their respective denominations for ministry. Many religious order sponsored Roman Catholic schools have merged or closed, and most diocesan Roman Catholic schools are more dependent on students from dioceses outside the sponsoring diocese. These and other factors contribute to a need for theological schools to give careful attention to the ways in which they are related to religious bodies and how they understand their work in the context of the mission of the congregations and organizations their graduates serve. (Focus time frame: 2006-2008)
4. Women in Leadership in Theological Education. The number of women faculty and senior administrators in theological education is growing, although the percentage of women faculty and administrators remains smaller than the percentage of women students. ATS provides educational support for women faculty and administrators and helps schools to develop skill and capacity related to women in theological education. While respecting differences in theological positions among ATS schools regarding the role of women in religious leadership, ATS provides resources to address the changes that are occurring due to the growing number of women faculty and administrators. These resources include peer learning, mentoring, and support toward professional growth and development. ATS also conducts institutional research to build institutional capacity and skill toward partnership and collaboration among women in faculty and administrative leadership positions.
5. Race and Ethnicity in Theological Education. ATS will support racial/ethnic faculty and administrators in theological schools and help schools to enhance their capacity to meet the needs of diverse racial/ethnic communities in North America. The population of North America is increasingly diverse in its racial/ethnic composition, and if religion is to be a viable presence in the culture of 2020-2040, it must be broadly inclusive of racial/ethnic constituencies; it must have white leaders who are educated to understand and serve in multiracial and trans-cultural contexts, and it must have leaders of color who are educated for leadership both within racial/ethnic communities and for growing multiracial communities. ATS will provide venues for gathering and supporting racial/ethnic faculty and administrators and will facilitate mentoring networks among these constituents. ATS will also help schools develop greater capacity to educate students more effectively for ministry in multicultural contexts and realize the benefits of increasing racial/ethnic diversity in the schools.
Strategies Related to the Targeted Areas of Work
and the Core Functions of the Association 2006-2012
In the context of the core functions of the Association and the targeted areas of work for 2006-2012, the following strategies are being or will be implemented. The strategies listed below do not describe every aspect of the Association's work; rather, they are strategies that require multiple-year effort. Because much of the work of the Association is funded by foundation grants, agenda as described reflect the work that has been proposed and funded. (Sources of current funding are shown in parentheses following the descriptions of the work.) There will be other areas of work of shorter duration that ATS may also undertake. While work may rightly be classified into more than one ATS function and, at times, may best be understood in terms of its importance for more than one function, this plan identifies strategies within the function of the Association with which they are most closely related in terms of the kind of work the strategy primarily entails.
1. Leadership Education
ATS will maintain and enhance its system and curriculum for the ongoing education of administrative leaders and its conferences focused on faculty development, and it will continue to administer grant programs in support of faculty development and the advancement of scholarship in the theological disciplines.
1.1 Education for Administrative Leaders
1.1.1 Presidents. ATS will continue to conduct the annual New Presidents Seminar, the week-long Presidential Leadership Intensive, and the University Deans Meeting. In addition, small presidential focus groups will continue to meet. ATS will work to develop a clear and comprehensive curriculum for the professional development of presidents.
1.1.2 Professional Development Organizations for Administrative Officers. ATS has fostered the formation of three organizations for specific leadership groups: the Chief Academic Officers Society (CAOS), the Student Personnel Administrators Network (SPAN), and the Chief Financial Officers Society (CFOS), in addition to the long-standing work of the Development and Institutional Advancement Program (DIAP). ATS will provide ongoing support for their steering committees in planning, implementing, and evaluating educational events. Each organization is represented on the Leadership Education Council, where coordination and work on structured curricula and other areas of concern are addressed. (Participant Fees and ATS Leadership Education for Theological Educators grant, 2006-2010)
1.2 Education for Women and Racial/Ethnic Faculty and Administrators
1.2.1 Women in Leadership. ATS will continue its programmatic support for women in leadership in theological education, including both faculty and administrators. ATS conducts a fall conference for women faculty and administrators and a spring retreat for senior women administrators. In addition, the program will conduct research on women in theological education. This program is the primary means by which the Association seeks to address its targeted area of work on Women in Leadership in Theological Education.
(ATS Leadership Education for Theological Educators grant and Carpenter Foundation grant for the research component, 2006-09.)
1.2.2 Racial/Ethnic Leadership. ATS will continue educational programming in support of racial/ethnic administrative leaders and faculty in theological schools, and undertake events that are focused on building capacity of ATS schools to function more effectively as racially inclusive environments and as educators of students for ministry in racial/ethnic and multicultural contexts. This program is the primary means by which ATS seeks to address its targeted area of work on race and ethnicity in theological education.
(ATS Leadership Education for Theological Educators grant, 2006-2010)
1.3 Faculty Development
1.3.1 Newly Appointed Faculty. ATS will continue the annual New Faculty Seminar for recently appointed faculty who are new to theological education. The seminar is structured to explore the collective vocation of faculty as a corporate entity and individual vocational issues necessarily raised by employment in these institutions.
(ATS Leadership Education for Theological Educators grant, 2006-2010)
1.3.2 The Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology Program. ATS will continue to administer this premier program in theological research, in consultation with the Henry Luce Foundation. ATS will also invite the participation of more Luce applicants and recipients in other ATS conferences and workshops to cultivate their leadership, as scholars, in the broader work of the Association. (Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology Program grant, 2006-2011)
1.3.3 The Lilly Theological Research Grants Program. This program makes three kinds of grants to faculty in schools that have candidate or accredited status with the ATS Commission on Accrediting: grants to faculty who have an approved research leave, grants to faculty as research stipends in lieu of some teaching responsibilities in the academic year or summer, and grants for expenses related to research, such as travel. Proposals related to the scholarly understanding of theological education will be considered, as well as proposals for research that advance theological disciplines. The project sponsors workshops for faculty that focus on proposal development, finding resources for faculty research, and writing for different audiences.
(Lilly Theological Research Grants Program grant, 2006-2009)
1.3.4 Vocation of the Theological Faculty. An annual Faculty Consultative Workshop will focus attention upon the institutional mission of the school and the collective vocation of the faculty. Sustained attention will be given to educational issues related to the ATS accrediting standards, the curricular work of the faculty, the role of faculty in governance, and the meaning of “vocation of the theological faculty” for the practice of theological education as leadership education. (ATS Leadership Education for Theological Educators grant, 2006-2010)
2. Development of Theological Education
During the period of this plan of work, ATS will conduct three major projects.
2.1 Character and Assessment of Learning for Religious Vocation. This project constitutes the effort by which ATS addresses the fourth targeted area of work, “Character and Assessment of Learning for Religious Vocation.” The focus of the project will be on the quality of learning that ATS schools hope will characterize their graduates, and on the ways in which schools can determine the extent to which this kind of learning has been attained. (Character and Assessment of Learning for Religious Vocation grant, 2001-2006)
2.2 Technology and Educational Practices. Information technology continues to change at a rapid rate, and this project will constitute the primary means by which ATS will address the targeted area of work of technology and educational practices. The goals of the project include (1) identifying a range of good practices in the use of digital and educational technologies that can enhance educational effectiveness, (2) providing guidance and support to 100 ATS schools, in addition to the 71 schools that received Lilly Endowment technology grants, in the development of infrastructure and skill in the use of educational technology, (3) developing an array of resources, across a variety of subjects and in multiple formats, to guide schools in the selection and use of educational technology in theological education, and (4) reviewing the ATS accrediting standards to ensure that they adequately address issues of digital technology and educational practice. (ATS Technology and Educational Practices grant, 2003-2007)
2.3 Theological Schools and the Church. ATS will maintain an ongoing emphasis in a variety of its activities to enhance churches' understanding about the function of theological schools in the context of the churches' missions, and the schools' understanding of the function of the church in the mission of theological schools. ATS will also seek to develop organizational practices that bring voices from the churches more routinely into the conversations of the Association. (Theological Schools and the Church: Finding a Future Together grant, 2004-2007)
3. Communications and Data
ATS has a comprehensive information technology system, Web site, and an array of print publications that support its work. The primary work planned for 2006-2012 focuses on promoting the use of these resources among the member schools and expanding efforts to communicate electronically with key constituencies in the schools.
3.1 ATS Publications. The Association maintains an extensive publications program in both print and electronic formats. During this cycle of work, the Association will make expanded use of electronic communication with various member school constituencies to direct them routinely to new editions of publications and other pertinent resources as they appear on the Web site.
3.2 Fact Book and ATS Individual Institution Statistical Reports. ATS will make these two resources available in electronic as well as print formats. ATS will publish the Annual Data Tables on the Web site so they can be used independently of the printed text in the Fact Book.
3.3 ATS Web site. ATS will continue to develop its Web site as a vehicle for communicating the Association’s priorities and work, providing timely information on Association programs and activities, offering publications and resources in electronic form, educating the public about theological education, and offering resources for use by media representatives and researchers in theological education.
3.4 Strategic Communications Plan. The Association will implement an ongoing strategic communications plan that addresses communications with member schools, affiliate and allied organizations, the media, the philanthropic community, the Pittsburgh area, and national audiences.
3.5 Student Information Resources. ATS will revise the summary report of its Entering and Graduating Student Questionnaires and make them available to schools in electronic form to enhance their usefulness. The results of the 2003 Profiles of Ministry Survey of expectations of those beginning ordained ministry will be published, summarizing thirty years of work in this area.
4. Association Support
The function of Association Support undergirds the work and mission of ATS. There are three areas of work proposed for special attention during the period of this work plan.
4.1 Funding Partners and ATS Support. The Association is engaged in a project to determine an economic model that will sustain the Association in the future. The project, which will extend to 2006, will (1) provide a rationale for determining the support the Association should expect from member schools, including dues and fees-for-service income, and those aspects of ATS work that should be routinely supported by these sources of income, (2) identify the kind of ATS work that should be supported by foundation grants, and the likelihood of obtaining grants for this work, and (3) identify foundations that may be receptive to considering proposals related to theological education and the work of the Association that have not funded ATS work previously. (Economic Model grant, 2003-06.)
4.2 Program Evaluation. The Association will implement a comprehensive process of evaluation that will enable it to assess the extent to which it has achieved the goals of its various program efforts as well as the overall goals inherent to its organizational mission. (Comprehensive Evaluation grant, 2003-07)
4.3 ATS Facilities. The ATS building serves the Association well. During the next several years, however, several maintenance and renewal projects may be necessary.
4.4 Affinity Programs. Many associations are able to establish discount programs whereby members are able to purchase products at reduced rates. This is possible because associations can market the membership as a buying group and receive favorable advantages in purchasing. The Association will pursue the possibility of and desire for affinity programs, if any, through the newly established Chief Financial Officers Society and other leadership groups.
4.5 Formal Investment Review. The Association will procure an investment performance consultant to review its investment performance and allocation / diversification.
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