good morning. welcome to mosaic i am ron swisher. it is always a privilege to host mosaic on these sundays. my colleague and co-host and producer dr. hugh burrows will be with us next month. i have been the president at one time of the board of trustees, at pacific school of religion. just now i am a member of the trustees and i was on the search committee for the new president, dr. mckinney retired for 14 years. we searched all over the country and then our next search we discovered we already had a great president. welcome reese. >> thank you ron.

>> great to have you >> appreciate the invitation. >> the audience probably doesn't know a little bit about your back ground but you have a great deal in seminary education as well as you have been at csr pacific school of religion. >> i started in ministry in the united church of christ in the san fernando valley in southern california and was there 18 years, but during that time it was a very innovative congregation and so we developed a large homeless shelter out of -- with of course other partners. >> mm-hmm. >> and we did that and then i began teaching at a state university, three quarters time. so i was doing all three projects. >> i see. >> my wife finally said can't you find one complex job. i ended upcoming to pacific

school of religion for 10 years and fund raiser and ended up as the dean. >> that was in the 90s. >> i began january 1st, 1993 the rest of the country was watching television i was moving my belongings up. >> i came to psr in the 60s. 68 to about 73 and was president of the alumna association not trustees which i said earlier, i made a mistake there. i did not know your tenure here in the 90s. >> no and then i went on the lancaster theological seminary for 8 years as president and then i came black i am a retread -- came back i am a retread. >> we are blessed to have you we looked around the country for persons and a lot of names emerged but when your name emerged, everyone was pleased to have you back. >> tell them to send checks

then. >> that is one of the challenges of seminary education, right? >> that's right. >> we will talk about approaching that in the next segment but what have you found most challenging being back as president? >> all across the united states you have free standing seminaries, there is maybe 245 of them in north america. and they are not connected to universities or colleges but are independent institutions and the vast majority of them are under capitalized they are always having financial struggles. so that is one issue. the other is many of the denominations that support these seminaries are themselves struggling over financial resources. and so it is kind of a system where there is a lot of difficulty and yet great work is being done in the training of leaders for not only congregations but for other

forms of ministry too >> we are going to talk more about that because i think pacific school of religion is very unique in many ways and i think one of the reasons you have come back so i want to talk more about that in the next segment please join us as we talk to the president of pacific school of religion.

back to mosaic we have been talking to reese about pacific school of religion, he is the new president and i believe for the next three years he will be with us. >> term president. >> great. we talked about the uniqueness of psr what is the uniqueness about it? >> it is unique in that is graduate theological union, in existence since 1963 is the amalgamation of 9 seminaries, three are roman catholic, five are protestant and one is unitarian universeless so

together they have made one library, and they -- >> one of the best. >> yeah, world class library. >> yeah and the students who enter any of the schools can take courses from all nine schools. so you have a choice each year of 700 courses. >> wow. >> and there is 145 faculty members in this consolidation. so the schools are all separate but they have found amazing ways to share educational resources and faculty and programming. >> that excited me when i became you know a student there, in 68, there for 20 years you had at one time the asian studies,. >> yes. >> and then did you also have jewish studies there? >> yes, there are actually now in the same complex we have been talking about as you say center so there is a center for jewish studies, there is a

center for orthodoxy, russian and greek orthodox church. there is a center now for islam. >> good. >> very active and there are all these specialties, so when a student comes they not only have their own courses that i have talked about but opportunities to interface with buddhism, islam, judaism, and that prepares them for the kind of world we are living in where all of those faith traditions and world religions are found in any city or hamlet. >> that is exciting earlier you told me about a student there for that reason. >> yes. >> you had thanksgiving with them? >> yes we have a large contingent of international students and put on a thanksgiving festival for them and i found myself at the table with one young man in his early 20s who has come here from japan specifically because he wanted to interface -- learn more about the world religions. >> i see i was not here for

your reception but your reception you were going to talk about the future of seminary education and connections with churches. >> yes. >> and some of those things. >> what is going on today is that there are some people going the traditional route of coming to seminary, studying for three years, this is of course after their under graduate education preparing for ministry and there are a whole wave of people who no longer have that as their end point they want to enrich themselves they are on their own faith journey or spiritual journey they will some times come to seminary to help develop that information and knowledge base for their own spiritual journey. so we are also in the business of what i would call enhancing or enriching the lives of individual people. and so we are doing that and then we are also trying to

reach out to more marginalized community that is have not traditionally come to seminaries for education of their leaders. >> i see. >> and trying to provide sort of seminary in the regions where they are. or over the internet. so they can pursue studies without having to necessarily give up jobs or relocate to berkeley. all of that is what i call the changing dynamism of seminary education. >> when it comes to church leadership i know some of the mega church pastors and some of the glowing churches have chosen not to come to seminary they take bible study or the lord has called me and go preach so what do you thing the benefits of seminary versus some of those approaches? >> well, i think that it is the degree of concentration of study, when you come away for three or four years as our students do, it is all day

classes, practical education in congregations and so it is the degree of concentration there are many ways for people to be prepared to be leaders in churches you've mentioned mega churches run their own internal smaller seminaries, denominations run add judicatory programs, offered by the church itself and some times seminary faculty will teach in those programtry to strengthen them but i think it is probably concentration the depth of learning that takes place in seminary you know you are reading books and books and books and journals and talking about it day and night for three or four years and that gives you a platform -- >> another exciting program that psr has, has been ther

roll lectures. >> they were starletted in the early part of the -- started in the early part of the 19th century gift that supports that came from the man who invented the refrigerated car for trains that would carry produce from california to colorado without damaging the lettuce and he left a gift to the school and one of the mandates was that we do something on an important public issue every year kind of between society and religious faith and so every year, there are lecturers who come and workshops. >> preachers. >> howard sherman, william sloan carlson,. >> teddy roosevelt. >> yeah,. >> all the major -- many of the major figures in religion and society have come to the lectures over the years and of

course we have a great one coming up in january, end of january, robert risch will be here, university of california, and talking about poverty and -- >> i think his book deals with that. >> yes. >> getting a lot of attention. >> we are excited but also have some great preachers and workshop leaders. >> we will talk more about what we call the tradition of boldness at psr, let's say a word about that in the next segment. i hope you have been following us here on mosaic and please be with us in the next segment. thank you

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we've been talking to the dr. reese of pacific school of

religion. >> pacific school of religion has seen itself as a progressive voice in christianity for a long period of time. you could trace the roots of that back, the first tenured female faculty member the first seminary -- >> georgia harkness. >> right the first seminary to train an openly gay man, for ministry bill johnson who was ordained 1971 : so a lot of firsts and there are many many conservative seminaries and conservative christian seminaries all over the country but psr is one of those that has really groomed itself and developed programs that are innovative and progressive. a few years about a decade ago we established center for lesbian and gay studies in

religion and ministry. that has become a major national center now, that provides all sorts of education and preparation not only for gay lesbian bisexual, transgendered persons but also for the churches in which these people live and work and carry out ministry. >> at our last trustee board meeting we did a video of faculty, the trustees, the students, on it will get better. >> yeah, it gets better. this has been very much in the news that many gay and lesbian teenagers have been bullied in their schools, and their environment and some have sought escape through suicide and we simply wanted to make a video that was kind of a national movement to put videos up to say well, not all christians condemn you there are people who accept you as you are want to celebrate your life and so it gets better hang in there and you will find

perhaps people who can also affirm your lives. >> back in october i think you also preached that day >> i did. >> remember the text? >> i do. >> pharisee and the -- >> repub will be can. >> going into the chapel to pray, one comes out justified the other didn't because they talked about how great they were. >> right the president usually gets called on to preach. >> i thought you did a great job. >> thank you. >> now the enrolment, the endowment, the physical plant of the school, major challenges, in terms of finances? >> yes, what my work over these three years will be boost the enrolment we have been static not that we have been in great decline but if we look at trends nationally there are fewer people coming into the

master of divinity program. what we want to do is bolster is master of arts degree that again is for people who are on their own journey into faith and religion and spiritualty. >> you mentioned to me earlier there are going to be all kinds of pro if he is tores soming -- professors that are coming in. >> yes, one area we focus on is theology and arts. the relationship of theology to graphic arts, to theatre to poetry to all art forms and then that has implications for the worship life of congregations as well. because we believe that some times when you revitalize congregation it starts in a more dynamic worship experience. >> that is the other dynamic then the relationship with churches. >> yes. >> how will that be strengthened. that is always talked about will seminaries talk about in

churches and churches in seminaries. >> well, i looked at lancaster very hard. >> where is that? >> an hour southwest from philadelphia pennsylvania but we worked very hard on structuring new platforms of education for lay leaders and congregations and the only way we are going to do that here i think is to build up a better instructional technology or internet platform so that some of the classes that we have can be shared you don't necessarily have to be there physically but you can receive the course over the internet. >> so many people are taking it online. >> yeah, online not that we would give up face to face education but many people talk about hybrid education where you have some of the work done online and some done face to face. >> i see. >> with nine seminaries all gathered you can imagine the resources that we have, if we can just package it better or find new ways of sharing it with congregations. so that is an ambition i have,

again, there is a price tag connected to that, so i am trying to raise money to enable us to do that work. >> churches can help in that. >> we are open 24/7. >> what about the other schools, briefly about gtu? how are they in their financial situations? >> they are in maybe the same -- some to stronger than others but part of what we are trying to do is work more closely together. >> mm-hmm. >> and to put together some consortium services you can have a business office that serves two or three or four seminaries and we have done some of that work already for the past few years. >> well, that is good then. >> that's good. >> as you said 245 seminaries, is that's right? >> yes, in north america. >> 90% of them are probably financially challenged. >> yes, i think that wouldn't

be an exaggeration to say that. so ways we can share resources share faculty we already share a library, build up out of the libraries of these nine schools, we've developed a wonderful partnership with sweden bjorgen church we brought them from boston to berkeley ten years ago they provide faculty resources to our school and rent space in our campus so we are kind of merged. >> i appreciate psrs commitment to social justice and always being on the cutting edge and that traditional boldness we have one more segment left and i want to talk a little bit about your background in terms of church we didn't talk about your denomination and your involvement. >> sure. >> please join us in our last segment.

i think one of the strengths of pacific school of religion is that it is nondenomination wall so i want the president to address that particularly his own denomination. >> well, ron i was ordained in the united church of christ raised in a congregational church in wisconsin and then 1957 my denomination was formed from four streams that came together amid-the united church. >> wasn't it the first church to ordain women? >> yes, 1951. >> we are 1956, united methodist. >> yes. >> earlier than some churches. >> there wasn't a flood of women but congregation allises were much in the anti slavery movement and after the civil war, we are very involved in creating colleges for the newly

freed slaves in the south and have done a lot of things like that over the years to sort of fry to make up for some to have most heinous actions. >> the first afterly can american was -- african american was ordained in your church. >> that's right. >> i mentioned nondenominational how many are there? >> usually 25 different denominations are represented in our student body we see ourselves as a big tent so that we have people who id logically are different from each other. they have conservative theologies and come from different denominational backgrounds and that makes the classroom a rich environment you have people who come from all sorts of religious experiences. >> you mention georgia harkness she was methodist. >> right. >> i think she has a rich tradition. >> she was an amazing woman of course very connection of justice you were talking about

social justice issues and christian mist simple. finding god through the interior of one's life but when you find god, god brings you back to the brokenness in the world. >> there is a new book on her that just came out, i will be reading that i picked it up at -- ordered it, it came a few days ago. >> i will put it on my christmas list. >> what do you think is the future of seminary? >> there still is a very strong future the church has not disappeared and gone away. it is a vital force in american society and world society but i do thing that we have to find ways of making education less expensive and more accessible that is why i started to talk about the internet earlier that is not the salvation of theological education but will be an important part to have way we move forward. >> isn't educational background case troubled in our country in

so many ways we hear we are 21st in math, 26 in science the whole gamut has to be dealt with. >> and an educated society is an important one but today, in our form of education, graduate education, when people run a ministry they will not earn big salaries so the student looks at the debt load or debt they are accumulating and things am i ever going to be able to repay that. that is when discouragement might happen. some how the church, seminaries all together have to deal with something like student debt make it more affordable. >> psi has always been helpful. >> we try. we have raised funds over the years and set aside endowments to try to subsidize education of students but it seems like it is never enough. >> no, i am sure.

>> i can understand that because there is just you know you come with families or you come from some other careers. >> maybe you are not working or working part-time during those years yet you are paying tuition, board and room and books are expensive you need technology it is a challenge. >> we are hopeful and glad you are with us and i think some of your ideas, i know you will be implementing next year and we will try to support you. >> good. >> and i know trustees come from all over the country and we are challenged to also be active in participating in every way. >> seminaries are supporting -- you need students, faculties, trustees who are key volunteers, alumna, ministers, lay leaders, it is all a kind of necessary in the whole community. >> thank you doctor.

>> thank you for having me. >> thank you for being with us. i am ron swisher. see you next month ,,,,,,,,,,,,