Over the past few months we’ve been exploring various aspects of affordability and accessibility (we paused for a few weeks to share some exciting personnel announcements – you can read more about any of this on InDepth). Very often, you’ll find quality included as a third item. In fact, just a few years ago, Stephen Ehrmann linked these three when he wrote Pursuing Quality, Access, and Affordability: A Field Guide to Improving Higher Education. Ehrmann calls commitments to affordability, accessibility, and quality “mutually supportive initiatives” that only truly improve when there are gains in all three areas. In other words, none of these three exist in isolation from the other two.
While affordability and accessibility are somewhat self-explanatory, “quality” presents more of a challenge to define within theological education. In the coming weeks we’ll be exploring various aspects of a commitment to quality. So, instead of just defining the term and then providing some examples, I am going to take a few weeks to develop some starting points for deeper consideration quality within theological education.
Winebrenner’s Board of Trustees is preparing to meet next week and I’m always reminded of the foundational role this group plays in our organization. A few years ago I wrote a series on InDepth called “Everything Starts with…Governance” (click here to read more). In that series I noted a few characteristics of what contributes to someone serving well as a Board member:
- Mission & Strategy are priorities
- Active participation
- Ability to navigate multiple relationships
- Led by the Spirit
These seem to be a good starting point both for Board members but also for a conversation about quality within theological education. Quality speaks more directly to the substance of the educational and learning experience. Quality emerges from a commitment to the Spirit along with active engagement with culture and our local context. Pushing this further, quality also must flow out of and align with an organization’s mission and strategy in addition to being reflective of multiple voices.
A Board of Trustees both protects and promotes an organization’s standards of quality. In coming weeks I’ll develop this further as we gain more insight into this third part of affordability, accessibility, and quality.
- Brent C. Sleasman, President