Featured photo: A student studies in the library at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. AMBS is one of six Mennonite higher education institutions who are entering into conversations with Mennonite Education Agency about future structural models. MEA photo. 

A new committee has been appointed to examine the relationships and statements of arrangements between Mennonite Education Agency (MEA) and the six Mennonite colleges and seminary, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana; Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas; Bluffton (Ohio) University; Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia; Goshen (Indiana) College; and Hesston (Kansas) College.

The Future Church/School Relations Committee, which includes representatives from MEA, the schools and Mennonite Church USA’s Executive Board and staff, will begin meeting this spring and hopes to have an initial proposal ready for all boards involved to review by October.

Carlos Romero, MEA executive director, acknowledges that there has been rapid change, both in the church and in higher education overall, over the last 15 years since original statements of arrangement were put in place. The agreements were implemented during the merger of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church to form Mennonite Church USA in 2002. The agreements between the five colleges and the seminary are not all the same.

“Our hope is to come out of this process with a proposal that speaks to the long-term relationships between higher education institutions and the church,” said Romero in an April 10 interview. “Relationships that reflect both our current realities and tomorrow’s.”

Richard Thomas, a longtime superintendent at Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Mennonite Schools, will chair the group.

“I care about education a lot and I care about the church a lot and I think we have a great future, but that we need to find ways that we’re working clearly together,” said Thomas. “I think that if we do that we can have thriving colleges and seminaries that help us have a thriving church.”

The idea for the committee grew out of conversations that have been bubbling for many years, but which took a more intentional shape during a January meeting of college and seminary presidents with MEA staff and board members. At the meeting, the current presidents of Mennonite higher education institutions called for more intentional conversation with MEA about the nature of their relationship to the agency.

James Harder, President of Bluffton University, convener of the Mennonite presidents group and a member of the committee, said, “It’s clear that the Mennonite schools want to remain very vibrantly an important part of the denomination.”

On Feb. 2, the presidents presented a draft proposal calling for the formation of a Mennonite higher education association where the members of the association help to set agenda and implement collaborative processes.

“For at least the last 7-8 years, there’s been a consensus on the institutional side that an association model of relationship with each other is what we need to become more collaborative,” said Harder in a May 5 phone interview. “I think there’s a real hope and wish that we can find a paradigm that allows schools to be relating more directly to each other and our structures need to catch up to that.”

Harder said there has been “unprecedented amounts” of collaboration between Mennonite higher education institutions in recent years, citing the formation of the Collaborative MBA (Masters of Business Administration) degree that is co-administered by Bluffton, EMU, Goshen and Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as well as a shared sociology degree offered by Bluffton, EMU and Goshen when the program became unsustainable for each individual institution. In addition, Harder says that staff and faculty in similar content areas gather to resource and support one another.

“I think there’s also an understanding that in this time of austerity on every college campus, the costs of the MEA structure should also reflect that austerity which everyone is experiencing,” said Harder. “We want to be able to do work together as effectively as possible.”

Harder said that the Feb. 2 proposal was meant to jump start conversations and that he and other presidents also hope that MEA’s board will present their vision for future relationship models.

Following these winter meetings, representatives from college and seminary boards, as well as MEA and the MC USA Executive Board, met together in Jacksonville, Florida, on March 10 to review the results of a survey assessing current attitudes about relationships, structures and denominational priorities for education. The call to form a committee to work intentionally on these issues emerged from these meetings.

“A church and its institutions with a missional commitment, by definition, should challenge operating definitions that are based only on traditions and the culture of the past,” said Romero in a speech given during the March 10 meeting. “It should focus our energy on ‘joining God’s redeeming work’ around us. For certain we agree that the present realities not only invite, but call us, to look at the future with new and open eyes and then to hope and to dream together [about] what might be possible.”

Moving forward, Thomas acknowledges that there may be differences of opinion among key stakeholders about how institutional relationships should look, but he’s confident that the committee “is going to be able to find good answers as we work together.”

He said, “We need empowering structures for our current institutions that enable them to do their work. And I think everyone agrees going into this that we want institutions that are centered on Anabaptist Christian faith and that are connected to the church.”

Romero agrees, “I believe we can find ways to address our long-term commitments to higher education and also to Anabaptist faith and values and get to a place of common understanding for all.”

Other committee members are: Evon Bergey, Eastern Mennonite University board of directors; David Boshart, Mennonite Church USA Executive Board; Edward Diller, Mennonite Church USA at-large representative; Kelvin Friesen, chair, Hesston College board of directors; Iris de León-Hartshorn, Mennonite Church USA Executive Board staff member; Marlene Kropf, Mennonite Education Agency board of directors; Faith Penner, Goshen College board of directors ; Sara Wenger Shenk, President, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary; John Sheriff, Interim President, Bethel College; Tom Stuckey, Mennonite Education Agency board of directors; and Carlos Romero (Ex-officio), Executive Director, Mennonite Education Agency. One at-large Mennonite Church USA at-large representative is still pending appointment.