I welcome this headline from NCN News. It should be very good news for Nazarene Theological Seminary and for all of Nazarene higher education. I only wish the accrediting agency had approved it several years ago! Do you agree?
http://www.ncnnews.com/nphweb/html/n...06&id=10011533
John F Martin
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Sounds good to me.
I wonder why those particular schools are the first to partner as extension campuses. Anybody know?
Are any of the other schools already offering their own mDiv program?Originally Posted by Rich Schmidt
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us wthout end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
- C.S. Lewis
I suppose it is good news, but I guess folks should keep it in perspective. The whole accreditation thing is up in the air with the advent of online education. NNU's online masters program actually has preliminary approval for ATS accreditation. Things are changing rapidly with the advent of online education and enrollment is skyrocketing as more institutions embrace the concept of distance learning. I am very proud of NTS for taking these steps. As a graduate ('94) I believe this may save NTS from irrelevance. There are some who claim accreditation is overrated and drives up the cost of education. But if your employer requires it, then it might be beneficial to get an accredited degree. Lot's of discussion about the validity of accrediting agencies these days and it is pretty obvious a school does not have to be accredited to be good. Even worse, is the fact that some schools lie about accreditation or at the very least they baffle people with some baloney about an accrediting agency that paid a visit. I guess what I'm trying to say is that accreditation is kinda messy and confusing for people. But Hooray for N.T.S.
I took a class at MVNU as part of this program and I love it. It appears that the first schools to partner with NTS are those not perceived to be competing with them with MDiv or MMin programs that directly rival NTS. I think it is a great thing for NTS and the schools involved, and an even greater thing for module students like I was.
I also welcome this news. Kansas City just not is reachable for me.
I work with academic institutions. Accreditation does matter, just like I think some form of church oversight matters for doctrinal purity. I would never work on a Masters that is not accredited; but as Bob says, employers opinion matters, too.
I also feel online education is only one of many tools and methods to use. Not all classes can be taught online - such as pastoral counseling, to name only one. Knowing which can be learned well via online and which cannot is vital. I plan to look at the MDiv at ENC... eventually, and if it can lead to supporting a sustained income .
I personally feel the MDiv should include Greek and Hebrew and I don't know if this does. (If not, I'll get those elsewhere).
Re: Greek and Hebrew. The MDiv is way more customizable, so you can include them if you want. Or, you can take the intro to Biblical Languages class. It is up to you
I wonder if this might be a good opportunity to discuss the role of communal spiritual formation in theological education/pastoral preparation. Also as an NTS alum (06), now that I am 6 years removed from that step in the journey, I often think the most valuable part of the experience was not "education" (I love the education part), but the community formation that happened in the chapel, in the prayer chapel, around the ping-pong table (or the foosball table if you prefer), at the commons, just dropping in a prof's office to chat, etc. Those were the places where the education came to life in the life of the community. And now that I am doing a DMin where I am on campus only a couple weeks a year, the community is the piece I miss the most. I think I would argue that a big (maybe the biggest) benefit of seminary is the community life. I mean, I love my history, theology, etc. But it is the formation that happened in the context of an intensely Christian/theological community that really still sustains me in ministry.
So if that is the case. If the spiritual formation that happens organically in a community of theological education and discussion is such a huge piece of the experience (maybe even the biggest), then how does that not get lost in satellite campuses, intensives, and online education?
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You have hit exactly what is my biggest concern in remote theological education. I think remote education works pretty well for the assimilation of data but theological education relies heavily on formation. We have talked about this a few times in our credentials board here on WAPAC. I still encourage anyone who is going to be in ministry for a lifetime to move to KC and go to school on campus. That being said more and more folks are going to do M.Div's online as well as their undergraduate. I really think the districts are going to have to step up. I would look to the schools to help us think this through.
Even with districts doing more it can not replace the power of a single institution that forms a high percentage of our clergy. I am concerned we are going to lose something very valuable.
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The opportunity for this partnership was presented to all the US Nazarene institutions (maybe Canada, too, I don't know). SNU and MVNU were the first to respond. They were both very eager and the programs began running pretty quickly. TNU and ENC came a little later - Trevecca, I believe, had some firm encouragement from their President, and they worked to get things up and running very quickly.
ENC has taken longer - partly, I think, because they didn't have any Master's programs in the religion department already running - as the other schools did.
The NTS program utilizes local professors for these classes - it doesn't make a ton of sense for the schools to develop an MDiv separately anyway.
ONU and NTS have been butting heads for a while, so I don't know if that will ever work out - and NNU has their own online MDiv. Point Loma is likely the only other school to sign on; I'm not sure where talks are at there - Ron Benefiel is there now and this project was his baby in the beginning - so they'll at least have a voice keeping it on the table.
...just my $.02.
I actually dislike online classes. They move the focus and you don't have that community in the class or surrounding you to help you develop and think things through. They miss out on the community and atmosphere that surrounds the learning and actually helps you to form your ideas and understandings. While classes are great the community of learning is much greater than the classes themselves. It is the whole is greater than its parts. And online courses only provide its parts.
"Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek."
To be clear, this isn't about online education. NTS is also ramping that up (mostly through real-time video-conferencing, which is well-beyond simply "online classes"). I'm thinking of taking one this fall. Rather, this new development has given NTS permission to grant the M.Div through classes in locations other than Kansas City (their "main" campus now). Classes are still held in classrooms with the actual presence of students and professors - not online.
ENC's delay was not on ENC (or lack of masters programs), but mostly because of the more difficult nature of getting things done in higher education in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (the main reason that ENC will never be ENU...despite the recent Holiness Today's effort to make it so...again).
Eric, there are other ways to create and maintain personal and relational formation beyond the community of a campus. I was at NTS with you, and while I appreciated much of the extracurricular community built on campus, my most treasured formation was in being a full-time associate pastor alongside my education, mainly through the mentorship of a senior pastor, but also through the community that is a church staff). A regulated and well-thought out program of mentorship/apprenticeship is even more important in my book. Even when we were at NTS, students could get an M.Div. without being too relational or communal.
Last edited by Jeremy D. Scott; July 11th, 2012 at 11:21 AM.
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Then they are not doing it right (or you aren't) or both. The major problem I have observed with online courses is that they take the easy or cheap way out. Most are asynchronous and thus doesn't attempt to develop the environment you are talking about. Though it is a bit harder to do via distance, generally speaking, an educator who cannot generate community focus online, most likely cannot do it in the classroom either. Both environments require deliberate planning from the leaders (educators) to create community. This does not happen by accident.
Everything can be replicated on-line, including one-on-one counseling. The counseling and community classroom environment is best replicated sychronously, which requires lots of bandwidth (each participant would need to transmit one stream plus receive one stream from each participant simultaneously).
I conducted a proof of concept for this in the late 90's for the Air Force, we ultimately went with asynchronous for most applications due to the bandwidth issues. However, during that time, I conducted sattelite classes (one way video, all way audio) to as many as 60 locations at once. Everyone could see me, and everyone could hear everyone else. The internet proof of concept was all-way video and audio. That proved to be a security nightmare because I needed port-level permissions through the firewalls at the different locations. We ultimately proved the concept was possible (35 locations simultaniously connected, world-wide), however at the time, not viable except when visual was absolutely necessary for the learning objectives.
That combined with research from others led us to conclude that the learning objective drove the medium. Once we proved we could, we then set about determining when it was necessary. Synchronous learning was deemed to be unnecessary except in a very few areas.
Eric,
You have some valid concerns. But as I understand it, the online programs require resident hours. So they are hybrids. Some are cohort programs where you get really tight with a group of folk and share a spiritual journey together for the duration of the program. I was in one such program for my D.Min. classes and it was a tremendous experience that yielded some watershed spiritual moments. There is no way to keep an accreditation without resident hours in the classroom, so that part is not going away. Although, NNU's online program got an initial nod from the ATS. BIG step! Jay Akkerman told me they were surprised and hopeful it would one day be fully accredited. We'll see.
Presently, I am an online instructor for Grand Canyon University's Graduate School of Theology where spiritual formation is not emphasized. Our program is not accredited and likely won't be due to GCU's online philosophy. They have ground programs that are and the classes virtually have the same content. Nonetheless, I view the lack of spiritual formation as a glaring weakness. My D.Min program concentrated on Leadership & Spiritual Formation. So I teach the Leadership classes online. On two occasions I taught the Spiritual formation class and it was pathetic (very low enrollment too). I hated it because it was not very relational at all.
I also teach Spiritual Formation for Nazarene Bible College (MPP). The class is designed to facilitate spiritual friendships. In fact, students are required to meet with a spiritual friend (mentor) on a weekly basis and report on their experience. There are ways we can facilitate spiritual formation without bringing students to campus.
But hooray for spiritual formation. Glad you see the need Eric. My experience tells me you are exactly right. We just have to think of creative ways to implement to carry it out.
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Thanks for the reminder. I'd hate to see NTS' program misunderstood by anyone skimming this thread too quickly.
As for real-time video-conferencing, my wife had several classes done that way in her Purdue PhD program. What made that more helpful for her (I think) was that there was a group of 2-3 who would meet here in Valpo to participate. The teacher and a small group of students were on campus, and then I think most of the other students in her cohort were bunched together like the Valpo group. I don't know if there were any participants sitting solo in their satellite locations.
Anyway, besides working almost as well as sitting in the same classroom, due to the real-time nature of it, she also had the added benefit of interacting with her local group before and after classes.
It's definitely a step up from asynchronous (to use Dan's word) online classes.
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I enjoyed that part about the class. I was glad that I had that experience especially when my friend died a few years later. Actually, I enjoyed the whole experience. Wonderful class.
I have had traditional college experience from ONU, online with NBC and local extention classes. Each did things well and not so well. ONU was right for when I was 19 and wanted adventure and 800 miles away from home. NBC and extention classes are right for now when I can't really pick up and leave. Online NTS with MVNU would be good for when I chose to do the M.Div. So would NNU online. Extention classes are good too, for the same reason. One class though that I could never do online was preaching. Learning oral communication by means of written communication is just not possible for me. At ALL!
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. 1 John 4:18a
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Just to be clear, I am not being critical at all. I think the satellite move is a good one. I agree with both you and Jeremy that there can be other ways. I said what I said only to point out a big piece that sometimes gets obscured in the need for information.
I think the other thing, FOR ME, is that while there is room for creative ways to make sure the spiritual formation happens, I am still skeptical that any of them can really duplicate life together. It's kind of like the words on the pages vs the white spaces between the letter/words. I don't know. I'm glad to have a place to think about these things...
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I agree that community is formative in an unplanned, organic way. It seems in the case of satellite campuses that community would still be functional, assuming that the students are physically present together on a regular basis, with opportunities for informal interaction. I'm not sure what a critical mass would be, but even in a class of 25, most people will only have meaningful relationship with a small subset of students anyway.
In the absence of developing a default community by virtue of proximity, we would have to be more intentional about seeking out community - which is a good life skill to develop anyway.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us wthout end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
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I hear ya, I am totally with you. Just trying to think this through. But we do tend to idealize experiences that were very formative for us. We then start to think of ways to replicate that experience again and again. I think this is why we still have campmeetings. It's a Dinosaur, but we keep doing it because it's what we know and somehow we think it might impact others in the same way it did us. So with the advent of the internet and online delivery, we have to accept the fact that community is going to look very different. Spiritual formation is going to happen through various venues.
I am working the Bible College to develop a mentoring course for pastors for continuing education credits. So, I am with you on the idea of "life-together."
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