As I reflect upon my tenth year as President of Winebrenner Theological Seminary, I’m thinking through some of the major learnings. Accepting the call to serve as President of Winebrenner required several major transitions: leaving a tenured faculty position for an executive leadership role, relocating from Pennsylvania to Ohio, and shifting from undergraduate education to the graduate level. I also moved from a focus on a single discipline, human communication, to engagement with the broader field of theological education.
This transition involved both tangible and intangible changes. Tangible factors included the responsibilities of the role, its place within the organizational structure, and geographic relocation. One important intangible was the posture toward peer schools. In an industry often shaped by anxiety over the “demographic cliff,” other schools were too often viewed as competitors, and student recruitment became a zero-sum game. In contrast, this essay presents a different vision, one that required a significant level of “un-learning” and relearning and represents one of the most significant insights that I wish to pass on to others in the field of theological education. This vision is one that prioritizes collaboration and partnership over competition.
Before diving deeper, it’s important to name a few assumptions that frame my reflections. These are not meant as universal prescriptions but as context for Winebrenner’s organizational shift and my own leadership journey. First, at Winebrenner, we interpret “theological” as reflecting a Christ-centered perspective. Discipleship is our core task. Second, we affirm the Old and New Testaments as foundational for guiding our mission. These two assumptions shape how we understand and pursue our work.
In the coming weeks we’ll be exploring some of the aspects and learnings related to collaboration and how they work themselves out at Winebrenner.
- Brent C. Sleasman, President