Case 11: The Bottom Line and the Seminary

Abstract

Dr. Gary Janzen, the new seminary dean, had recently come to Friends’ Northwest University (hereafter referred to as Friends’). He was to develop a strategy to make the seminary competitive locally (with its master’s degrees, certificate programs, and outreach), and competitive nationally (with its doctor of ministry degree program, which was based on a hybrid residential and online format). Janzen had a practical orientation, having served more than 25 years as a pastor. His terminal degree was a doctor of ministry – a professionally oriented doctorate, as opposed to the Ph.D.s held by researchers in seminaries. The newly arrived President Bill Duncan believed the seminary needed a practical leader.