Midwestern Seminary may relocate in Kansas City
___By Tim Palmer
___Missouri Word & Way
___KANSAS CITY, Mo. (ABP) --Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's board of trustees voted Oct. 17 to make relocation of the seminary within the Kansas City metropolitan area "the preferred option" for the school's future.
___Trustees also voted to adopt the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message as the seminary's articles of faith and to require new faculty to affirm it in writing.
___The board also affirmed interim president Michael Whitehead and asked the presidential search committee to continue its work, with Whitehead as a potential candidate.
___Meeting Oct. 16-17 at Kansas City's Embassy Suites Hotel, the board spent the majority of its time in closed session. Trustees heard a presentation from Hunt Midwest Real Estate Corp., which is interested in acquiring and developing Midwestern's campus and helping the seminary relocate.
___In a two-part motion from a planning and building committee, trustees authorized the committee to negotiate with Hunt Midwest and other firms "for services related to appraisal, land-use planning and various options for developing new facilities." The second part of the motion noted that finding a new site in Kansas City is the board's preferred option.
___Trustees ratified an Oct. 7 resolution by their executive committee, which rebuffed rumors that Midwestern might merge with another seminary and move to a different state.
___Whitehead told the Missouri Baptist newspaper Word & Way that trustees moved to squelch the rumors because seminary officials were getting calls from people who believed a merger/move was a "done deal" made with the board's knowledge.
___A staff member from the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee has promoted the idea of merging Midwestern Seminary with another SBC seminary and moving them, Midwestern officials said.
___In adopting the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, the board directed that all faculty handbooks, employment handbooks and related policies be amended to reflect the revision. The motion "further directs that faculty members, at the time of election or renewal of contracts, sign an affirmation of the document." Use of a lengthy questionnaire for prospective faculty will be discontinued.
___Trustees did not discuss in open session a potential $400,000 funding shortfall from Texas Baptists, but Whitehead talked about it in an interview.
___Midwestern started the year with a $359,000 surplus, he noted, and then it received $200,000 from Cooperative Program surplus giving. "So we have a year's cushion to watch and see how Texas Baptists resolve their differences," he said.
___The seminary has implemented some cost-saving measures, Whitehead said.
___Class sizes have been increased and the frequency of offering some courses has been decreased, resulting in a $60,000 annual savings in teaching stipends.
___"We'll live with what the Lord gives us," Whitehead said.
___Trustees also adopted a resolution affirming an SBC Executive Committee resolution on the Cooperative Program agreement between the SBC and the Baptist General Convention of Texas, in which the BGCT was criticized for proposing to divert more than $5 million from SBC causes.



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