Episcopal Divinity School has announced a new partnership with Lesley University and made an official announcement about the resignation of Dean Steven Charleston (which we covered here).

The partnership includes the sale of buildings to Lesley University, academic program enhancements, and shared facilities for such uses a library, student dining and services, and campus maintenance. EDS will retain ownership of 13 buildings on its eight acre campus. This partnership is part of a larger strategic plan developed by EDS designed to ensure the long-term viability of the seminary.

Episcopal Divinity School President and Dean Steven Charleston and Lesley University President Joseph B. Moore hailed the agreement as one that supports the missions of both schools – providing needed facilities for planned growth at Lesley University and a strong financial foundation for EDS.

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The partnership announcement follows last week’s announcement by Charleston of his planned resignation on June 30, 2008. Last summer, he spoke with trustees about his interest in making plans to leave EDS, wanting to time his departure so that it would dovetail with EDS’ plans for the future. With the Lesley partnership and the strategic plan in place, Charleston determined that the end of the current academic year presented a good opportunity for a change in leadership. In a February 28, 2008 letter to the EDS community and alumni/ae, Charleston wrote, “The time has come for me to say farewell to EDS and let others carry on with both the hard work and exciting times to come. After almost a decade at EDS, I see that our school has become one of the brightest lights in the Episcopal Church. Now I need to bring my tenure at EDS to a close so new leadership can carry out the next phase of growth for our school.”

Complete releases and additional information here.

Using the bicentennial of Andover Newton Theological School as the occasion, Richard Higgins explores the challenges facing most denominational seminaries:

The nation has 165 seminaries, but 39 percent of seminary students attend just 20 of them. The 20 large institutions, all but two evangelical Christian, raise substantial money, have big endowments or receive moderate to high denominational support — or do all three.

In addition, nonsectarian theological and divinity schools that exist within a university also tend to be in good shape.

But a majority of Protestant seminaries are smaller independents, and many, including Andover Newton, lack adequate endowments. The mainline churches that parented the older seminaries have sharply cut financial support.

A result, said Daniel O. Aleshire, executive director of the National Association of Theological Schools, is that around 30 seminaries are in financial stress. In the future, Mr. Aleshire said, “There may be just two kinds of seminaries, those with substantial endowments or effective annual giving and the nonexistent.”

While Andover Newton is not on the brink, Mr. Carter said, it and other seminaries needed to think about sharing costs and pooling resources. The Bangor Theological Seminary in Maine has begun to outsource information technology work here.

“All of us,” Mr. Carter said, “have to find news ways to relate to and collaborate with each other as institutions or face the prospect that some will go out of business.”

Driven by economics and a desire for innovation, Andover Newton shares its campus with Hebrew College, a rabbinic school. The arrangement saves on fixed costs, Mr. Carter said, and the interfaith discussions it has created has attracted new types of students, grants and donations. Other seminaries are similarly combining resources, Mr. Aleshire said.

Read it all here.

See our earlier report on the future of Episcopal seminaries here.

The Trustees of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary today declared that the Episcopal Seminary “is in (a state of) financial crisis that threatens survival of the institution” and has given notice to all faculty that employment will end on June 30, 2009. The school also eliminated nine staff positions. The final date of employment for most of these staff will be May 23 – a week after graduation and the school’s 150th anniversary celebrations.

UPDATE - Chicago Tribune coverage here: "Officials at the Evanston seminary insist the school is not closing, but that it is redefining its approach for preparing men and women for priesthood."

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The Most Rev. Desmond Tutu, archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, addressed University of the South's School of Theology on Friday, and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori delivered the commencement address earlier today.

Tutu talks about thanksgiving, and about being agents to fulfill God's purpose. Calling on the graduates to heed the cries for help from those in need, he notes that our greater cause is to bring about more compassion, love and laughter in this world.

The graduation ceremony also culminates the Sewanee's yearlong sesquicentennial celebration.

From a write-up on Tutu's address:

People may have their minds on gas prices, grocery bills and whether or not a pink slip awaits them at work, but Americans should not forget the desperation and troubles of others abroad, South African humanitarian leader Desmond Tutu said Friday.

“We have major problems relating to governments and freedom,” said Anglican Archbishop Tutu, speaking to a crowd of more than 800 at the University of the South. “We have a number of places where the rulers are not there because the people wanted them to be there. There is a great deal of oppression.”

Archbishop Tutu was at Sewanee to celebrate the school of seminary’s graduation. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to hold the Anglican church’s top office, also was present at the event.

The write-up in the Chattanooga Times Free Press is here, but it's better to just watch the sermon itself, here.

Today: Jefferts Schori,

invoking the epistle lesson for the day, told a packed crowd of undergraduates and their families, faculty, staff and special guests in All Saints Chapel that "provocation is the reason you came here...provocation that invokes love and good deeds."

In the Baccaulaureate Address for the penultimate event of graduation weekend, the 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, U.S.A., quoted from the Letter to the Hebrews and urged the graduates to cultivate "undefended hearts" that are open to others and to the needs of the world as a way of taking a leadership role.

Her remarks followed the reading of the first part of a five-part poem, "Sewanee When We Were Young," by Richard Tillinghast, C'62. Tillinghast received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree at the service, while Jefferts Schori received an honorary Doctor of Divinity.

Video is not up yet, but should be available later today here.