Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

Greetings from Garrett-Evangelical!  I write to express the excitement of a new academic year.  We begin the year with the welcome of another large and highly qualified class of entering students.  We also are privileged to host Professor Jürgen Moltmann, who will inaugurate our year by giving the address at our Academic Convocation on September 9.

We are thrilled to welcome new faculty and staff to campus.  Dr. Anne Joh joins us in theology, Dr. John Dally will be a part-time visiting faculty member in homiletics, and Dr. Brooke Lester will be a part-time affiliate faculty member in Old Testament.  Dr. R. Drew Smith has joined the seminary as the part-time director of The Church and the Black Experience.  Throughout the remainder of this year there are remarkable opportunities for learning in our regularly scheduled classes and through events during the year.  For the first time ever we will be offering more that two dozen of the special lectures and worship services via real time web-casts.  You can find out more about these learning possibilities by going to our website's homepage.

The past year has seen a downturn in the world's economy.  The seminary has responded to this with some significant planning for the future.  We have had to hold off on some searches for faculty and have seen some of our plans for improvements in facilities delayed.  One of the decisions made was to provide additional financial aid to all of our full-time degree students.  So, for this year, we are making a one-time $500 grant to all full-time students that will be over and above other financial aid resources they receive. 

We will continue to improve our facilities and will be making some significant advances this year.  Particular areas of emphasis during the year include the following:

1. Over the summer of 2009 Garrett-Evangelical purchased the Seabury-Western Theological Seminary portion of the United Library collection.  (Seabury previously owned 25 percent of the collection--over 90,000 volumes.)  We are adding over 23,500 linear feet of compact shelving space to our library.  By December 2009 all of the materials formerly housed at Seabury will be housed in the Garrett-Evangelical Library. 
2. We are making improvements in on-campus housing, including putting sprinkler systems in Loder Hall and Old Dorm.
3. The Trustees are working with our architect to plan for improvements of several buildings on campus, beginning with Loder Hall and Student Center needs there.  These renovations are planned to meet our longer-range strategic goals for housing, classrooms, faculty offices and student functions.
4. We are making technological upgrades in our classrooms and will add another classroom for real-time simulcast teaching.   This allows us to have students in multiple locations away from Evanston enrolled in our classes.

Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary has a bright future. With your help, we will come out of the recent challenging economy with an even stronger school.  Thank you for your prayers and gifts toward our work.

With gratitude,

Phil Amerson
President