Speaking About What's Happening at CUW and CUAA - BONUS

Each podcast confronts real-time struggles facing the local church in a post-Christian culture . Step into the action with the ULC at unitel leadershiporg . This is Leigh Time .

I've had a number of people reaching out to me , concerned about everything that's taking place right now Concordia University , wisconsin , and the Concordia University Ann Arbor situation and I have and I would say it's an opportunity for kingdom-minded collaborative growth moving forward .

Just to put a timestamp on this conversation , this is being recorded on Tuesday , february 20 . I and many others have listened to Town Halls with Dr Ankerberg and his team there at Concordia , ann Arbor . If you will be copying some of those show notes , that YouTube video , if you probably many of you are watching this , you've probably already seen that .

So this is coming right on the heels of that conversation and my friend and I know I pray he's a partner and friend with you too , wherever it is that you're seeking to get after mission and ministry Reverend Dr Pat Ferry hanging out with me today . Thank you , pat , for your time . Here's the opening tone of this conversation today .

We want this conversation to be helpful and not harmful . There are many details that are still unclear and our aim is not to disparage President Eric Ankerberg , hoping to have him on the podcast as a guest in the future or to disparage any of the staff or boards from either university in their collaborative work .

And so that is a tone in which we're starting and kind of the opening question . Pat , and to give us a little bit of your story , you know the pain of losing an alma mater , st John's in Winfield , kansas , in 1986 . That university , that junior college , closed the Johnny's my dad was a Johnny tells me funny stories about his time there at Accordia St John .

I know you have some stories as well , but what does that feel like , even as an alma mater , to know ? Wow , that place that shaped me it's no longer there .

So this is really just about the bigger question , the bigger issue , not about people or personalities , and I'm grateful for his leadership and the boards as well . The board is in a very challenging situation and hopefully this can bring us some perspective . I've been reluctant , as you know , when you asked me to do this .

I've been reluctant to say much about it . This is I wanna be mindful of my place as a predecessor , but I joined the much broader conversation that's going on in the church about this and hopefully it can bring something to it . And when you talk about St John's College , it also just goes to show you that I'm an old guy now . It was a long time ago .

That said , even this morning on a text thread , was some of my old classmates from St John's College staying in touch close relationships .

I'm married to a Johnny , so we talk about it now and then , but it was a very special place in a very special spirit that pervaded that campus and that experience one that lives on , I think , in Johnny's today and one , by the way , maybe as a segue , one that we kind of felt was very similar has been very similar on the Ann Arbor campus .

Tammy and I often commented on just what an extraordinarily special place that is not unlike St John's was . Yeah , no , thank you .

That you know that hits deep and is hard , and it was hard for him or for President Egbert to say it and it's hard for people to receive it . So there's a lot of discordia now , broken hearts instead of hearts together .

You shared that article with me in the room where it happened and you stayed in this article that it wasn't entirely your doing .

I think , pat , some people know you as the president who saved Concordia Ann Arbor , but you are quick to note that it was all about cooperation and collaboration a whole bunch of folks coming together and in 2008 , the CUS was in a growth mode .

This is I didn't know about this listener , maybe you do , but Concordia , wisconsin was considering Concordia , which is like launching a second campus down there , but then you chose Concordia University , ann Arbor , that partnership , really over that potential vision down in Florida .

It was a messy story of God at work and I'm excited that you can share it now , pat .

We were in a very strong position there financially at that point , in growth mode , looking for ways to expand Lutheran higher education mission and ministry . We had lots of interesting discussions along the way . Jack Roy Senai and our board chairs met to talk about maybe CUW and Concordia Irvine coming together in some extraordinary way .

Concordia was a real option for us . We spent a lot of time in Florida working with people , thinking about how we might start from scratch . Concordia campus and Ann Arbor was in tough shape at that point . President Allersmeyer and I had conversations .

They were struggling and we simply asked ourselves the question what makes us think that we could be successful in Florida and not successful in Michigan , the largest district in our synod , with a campus , a beautiful campus , an extraordinary location already in place , lutheran faculty programs ? Why do we think we could do one but not the other ?

So we really felt quite confident that if given the opportunity , we could help turn things around in Ann Arbor . But that was a with all due respect , I mean this was a really , really long conversation , not one that lasted an hour like the recent board meeting where this was discussed for a little over an hour .

This was weeks and months , even years , of considered reflection and due diligence and just mind-bending questions . And we didn't do it even alone as a CUW community . We engaged CUS involvement , colleagues from Chicago and from Seward as well as Ann Arbor Met CUS .

It was a very thorough collegial process and then even at the end , when we finally made the decision , it was not an easy one to make but it was very much , I think , mission-driven , and there was not one day that I looked back on it with any sort of regret still certainly to any , and I would say , tim , now more true than ever as we kind of assess the

impact that Concordia and Arbor has had and continues

to have .

?

And you know it wasn't always easy . It's never been easy because you know you're just to have some of those kind of local realities that are important histories and the like . But on the whole I think people really embraced that and didn't see it as us and them , except for when they played basketball , and that was more fun than anything else , but it was .

I think people really captured the idea that this was , we're in it together , we are we , you know , and that was important . It was important for our culture , an important , important dimension to why things worked the way they did .

I think that one thing I would say is we never viewed either campus as just an asset , you know , to be considered for kind of transactional purpose , and I'm not implying that's exactly what's happening now , but that's certainly how it's being interpreted in some circles .

And we were able , I think with partners to tackle a lot of that . Up front . There was $20 million in debt that had to be figured out . That CW absorbed half of it , but other partners , other districts in the region , lc , michigan Church Extension Fund , folks sitting around the table figuring out how we're going to tackle the debt before we start anything .

And then , of course , the university has invested a lot of money in Ann Arbor . We've invested a lot of money into Mac won . I mean , that's what you do , right , you invest into your capital resources and your programs in order to fulfill your mission .

So I mean you don't keep track of that in a way as something to kind of leverage against one campus or the other . You invest , you invest in your campus and capital resources and other financial resources , and of course we've done that through the years .

I think that we had hoped that maybe in terms of operations , that Ann Arbor would turn very quickly , and that was based , I think , at that time , on the hope that adult education programs , nontraditional adult education programs , could be profitable and helpful on both campuses .

That happened at just precisely the moment that those kind of programs went really downhill fast . I remember thinking about when I was first president , how , in adult education .

We competed with Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee right , and then all of a sudden we're competing with the whole world for adult education students , and so that part was not as successful immediately as we'd hoped .

But the enrollment trajectory at Concordia Ann Arbor has steadily been strong and positive for traditional undergrad , and I'll say more about why that kind of thing is so important , more about why that can't be the only thing you look at . But it has been very strong . In fact this year they have the largest enrollment in the history of the school .

The place is buzzing . You can't find a place to park A lot of strong traditional undergraduate programs . But traditional undergraduate programs are very expensive , and that's true on any and every campus . We've seen a decline in traditional undergraduate enrollment on the Mecklin campus .

It's hard . There are fewer students to draw from these days and you can't expect to be operationally in the black with merely traditional undergraduate program . For that reason the plan was to add other programs in Ann Arbor .

At Mecklin we had great success with healthcare programs and those are very much in demand still today , and so investment was made to do that in Ann Arbor , to add physical nursing first , then physical therapy , occupational therapy , now , more recently , physician's assistant program . Those programs are not inexpensive to start up right .

In most cases you have to have your full faculty in place before you can even have a student on campus . And only just now are they kind of rolling out in their entirety in Ann Arbor and I think if allowed to continue along this path because they are fully subscribed , they would begin to show a significant return on investment .

But even with those , tim , there are not very many schools like ours are making it operationally in the black Now . At Concordia , wisconsin , we were able to do that for a long time , for many years , and it was a tremendous blessing .

But the much more obvious and necessary model these days is to draw upon , of course , annual fund donations that can be achieved and also to utilize endowments to help to benefit and defray operational expenses as well .

Well , I think there's been some conversation around needing and this is Michigan District , We'll put a link at the end of this , you know saying there's a five million that's needed from the wider church and Michigan District's trying to get that and it's been said to just be a band-aid , if you will .

And yeah , I don't know the details of how long that would last . So , yeah , get into a little bit more of the details there with Ann Arbor , the $5 million deficit .

Let me back up , and I don't want to sound defensive in this regard at all . I mean , I've seen a few posts out there like , oh gosh , there's been , must , there's been talk about mismanagement for for years and years . I mean what ?

Well , here's , here's kind of the reality , and this may take a couple minutes , so , if you don't mind , let me just and you know this is not my , my particular area of forte , so I've been consulting to make sure I have my information correct . People can utilize numbers and facts and figures to accomplish all kinds of different results , right , but this is .

This is kind of how I see it . So the merger is about 10 years , about 10 years into the merger , right . For nine of those 10 years CUW AA has been profitable on a consolidated basis for nine , including the last two years , profitable on a consolidated basis .

So those who say that Ann Arbor has been an anchor to Mequon against sort of dividing the discussion , it's just not true . And in fact , not only profitable nine of those last 10 years , but the average positive change in net assets . The average profitability over over the last decade has been $11.7 million a year .

I mean that's a positive change in net assets of $11.7 million average per year and that has been typically just rolled over into the endowment and this has allowed that endowment to grow . And when I first became president at CUW we had a $25 million endowment . It's about $125 million now , wow , and not big enough , but but certainly making progress at .

$27 million of that came over from Ann Arbor as part of the merger . So $27 million came and of that $125 million , about $30 million is restricted . That means donors have given it and have said you know , this has got to be used for scholarships or this has got to be used for this endowed chair , so about $30 million .

But that means about $90 million of that endowment is unrestricted board designated . The board can use it any way that it wants . And , moreover , there is a board policy that allows the administration , allows the administration to use 4% of the endowment each year for operations or for whatever it wants to .

Right , build a new music bill , you can use 4% in about $5 million a year . You can use without any board action . Right , might be a good idea to report to the board that you've done that , but doesn't require its board policy . Right , and the board could use , choose to do whatever it wants to with with the $90 million . It could choose to do that .

So I mean there's and again and this is someone put it to me this way recently , and this is , I don't think my friend , bernard Bull would argue with this but if Concordia Nebraska didn't rely on endowment earnings and annual fund giving to help defray operating deficits , that campus would be just a cornfield in Seward , nebraska right now . Right , this is not .

This is not exceptional , this is typical . This is what endowments are for and , of course , the necessity of annual fund fundraising as well . The Ann Arbor campus if it were sold off to a developer , right ? The proceeds from that would simply , by and large , just be added to that endowment . Wouldn't have a campus there , but we'd have a larger endowment .

Now , this is another financial fact . There was $11.3 million in cash at the end of fiscal year , june 30 , 2023 . $11.3 million in cash at the end of last fiscal year .

In the bank , concordia has not drawn on its line of credit , which it is able to do , and Concordia's often have to do that as they consider the kind of ebb and flow of revenues at various times .

So and I would add to that this observation that this year , on June 30 , this coming June 30 , this , the end of fiscal year 2024 , just assuming that the stock market remains flat , just remains flat Concordia University , wisconsin , ann Arbor , will certainly end the year in the black without having to sell anything .

That doesn't mean that there aren't financial concerns , right , you cannot have those kind of operating deficits year in , year out , but to suggest that this is a crisis that requires again this kind of extraordinary action .

I mean , it'd just be very difficult for me to look folks in the eye on June 30 and , with this , a positive change in net assets , without utilizing any of the endowment , which we would be allowed to do , and to say we had no choice , right .

And if President Ankeberg's vision is to have a really strong , robust , mequon campus , that that should be encouraged . That should be encouraged and supported , and I certainly would support him .

But I don't think it has to happen at the expense of Concordia and Arbor , and I think , in fact , that there can be creative solutions to this that would allow the Ann Arbor campus to continue to grow and to flourish , and what those might be . You know what ? It took a long time to figure out how we got to where we were .

Take a little time , take a breath , get the pause button , work with the district . The district is motivated to be helpful and eager to find a way , working with other partners in CUS or who knows what it might be . But I know that once it's gone , it's gone right and that you can't turn the page back on that .

Would executives send their kids to a school now that is already on the edge of being open next year or not ?

I don't think it's a win-lose proposition . I think it's a win-win . I think that one can flourish . But if that's not what the leadership and the board want to do , if Ann Arbor they don't want to do that , that's okay . But you know it doesn't have to be closed out .

It's just hard to imagine that as a synod , as a CUS system , that we're better off with , you know , a new kind of high-end residential neighborhood along the banks of the Huron River than the Chapel of the Holy Trinity , where we've had , in the last several years , scores and scores of of young students being baptized , brought into the church of the gospel being

proclaimed each day , of church workers and non-church workers being placed into serving Christ in the church and in the world . I mean , it's just , that's not . I don't suspect what is being reimagined , but that's what's at risk .

Put the best construction on everything . Try to work toward the bond of peace and unity within the body of Christ . I know that's what you tried to do for years and years . So what words of wisdom would you share with those who are angry and thinking ? Well , you know what this is just par for the course .

Down goes another Concordia University , with the Synod living off of the asset . This is in line with some of Synod leadership wanting to get to and I've heard this the Hillsdale model of higher education . Just consolidate all the Concordia's into one institution , all in the hopes of protecting and purifying our doctrine in one location .

To me this sounds like we've forgotten our missional model of our schools that should have baptism . Like you just talk about the kids coming to the faith , you coming to the faith because of Concordia's , pat , and we're preferring more of a covenant model . I would say some of those things , and I've heard others say

even more loudly . Many of those things . You can respond to that if you like , but that's where the hearts are of many people who are observing this struggle right now , brother .

Trying to find a way . It wasn't , this wasn't the result of one kind of and this is again the university had a consultant in , gave a very negative report . This , this is , but beyond that , this is sort of out of the blue for folks . This was not a part of this strategic plan discussion .

There are folks that I've talked to that that have some real questions about the , the Consultation , the report . For one thing , they didn't even have a conversation with , with the most recent CFO , who'd been there 23 years and presided over Extraordinary growth .

I mean they're they're problems , the problems , and I know that the board Got this in the agenda and they talked about it for a little over an hour and then they acted . I mean that , again , with all due respect , their predecessor boards , many of them spent hours and hours and hours . You know I'm the luxury of years .

I realized that there's time to to stop and Ask , you know , is there something we can do and I give a ton of credit to the Michigan district for you know Kind of stepping into the breach . I know they're in the midst of a fun drive . Tammy and I made a pledge today .

We felt kind of stretched , us the two to support the idea of looking for a different solution , and I hope others will too . I know it's gonna take more than than a few people giving some of their resources , but but , but it's . It's the right kind of response . It says we care about this and we we want to . We want to Make a difference and we want to .

We don't want to lose a Concordia . And I don't know if others have a different idea of what , what the system should be . That's fine . But I know historically and I'm sorry , I'm glad you know what Concordia Wisconsin was established in 1881 . I'm reading them . I'm reading a Biography of president Garfield . He was the president . He just became president .

That didn't last long before .

But so the Concordia Wisconsin it has has weathered , I mean Kind of Jim Crow , post civil war era , the first world war , the , the Spanish flu , the great depression , the second world war , the I mean all the things that have happened , and it came very close to closing , by the way , at one point in its own history , until people came up with a more creative

solution and and Just can't tell me that . I mean , it's sort of be sort of hubris , wouldn't it , to say , yeah , but our times are so much more difficult than those times . They're not , they're not , we've got it . We've got to have this word marathoner , mentality of delayed gratification . You got to hang in there .

You got to keep , keep scrapping , keep scrapping . You don't sell for me mediocrity . That's not what I'm suggesting , but I would argue that what's happening to create arbors far from mediocre it's . It's having a big impact on a lot , of , a lot of people's lives .

I thought this was gonna work and now it's not . If I could pray for one thing In our church body , it's just adaptive leadership and then just wisdom in team cooperation , collaboration , care for one another , listening deeply for one another . That's what I'm praying for for Dr Anchorberg in the coming days , for the board .

But and just as deep respect , like I'm a , I don't have as much of a If this were happening at Concordia Seward , yeah , I'd I probably would have teared up a time or two up to this point , thinking about the life Transformation and your investments and so many that have , and I know , I know Dr Anchorberg and the executive staff would say yes and amen to

everything we just said . They , they take the gravity of the situation very , very seriously .

I'm just finished a book called metanoia Pat by Alan Hirsch and Rob Kelly . We're gonna be guests on this show in the coming months . But it's that meta , it's above right and knowing to set our mind above where Christ is . That's the 31 times metanoia is used for for repentance , and it's an ongoing thing .

It's an individual thing , but it's way bigger than just guilt and and confession and individual absolution . There's this communal posture of of repentance and Collectively and leadership teams , setting our mind above where Christ is .

And I really believe that if we set our minds above when Christ is , we move from scarcity to abundance , we move from fear to adventure , like just this open-handed posture is what we live out of in the LCMS and too often I see decisions made out of fear and and Partisan politics , if you will eat , that are outside .

This is the way of the world having an impact inside , which leads us to Make value statements about certain people because they associate with certain people , and it's just not healthy . It's not the way . It's not the way of Jesus . Jesus came to seek and save the lost . Jesus came for the sick , not the well . Jesus crossed boundaries , consistently pattern .

I'm preaching the choir here , you know , but I just got to get this off my chest . Like Jesus went to the other people . Jesus had a huge room , pat . Jesus cast vision to reach people with the gospel . That went beyond the room , the Jewish room , that went to Jew and Gentile , slave-free , young , old , rich , poor , male , female .

And so can the rooms in the LCMS just become , like Jesus , large for us to listen to one another deeply . That's the aim of this podcast , man .

Things been pretty quiet for me in my life since last summer , and so this has been fun , but I think it's really important and and what you're doing is very important to Tim , so keep up the good work .

There is a Due date on that of February , I think , 28th , 29th , somewhere along there to hit pledge support . Thank you , pat , for doing it . My wife and I are gonna be doing the same here and , if you're , if you're talking about On social media . So Michigan district , I thinkorg that's it . Michigan districtorg is where you can go to pledge support .

There's one link there . It just says pledge support . It's right on the homepage , super easy to find . And for those who are sharing thoughts , I listened or read Bernard bulls . Really , he wrote a real nice post , an extended post , on the inevitability of change in our systems and and our unity around the cause of Christ . Really , really thoughtful , helpful .

But if you're praying for this , just put hashtag because of Concordia , because of Concordia , as you're praying for everyone involved , and please share . Last note this is a bonus episode of Lead Time . Please share If this could help other people expand the rooms and get a little bit more information , especially financially .

We're praying that Concordia Ann Arbor would stay . This is what I'm praying Concordia Ann Arbor would stay open , that creative solutions would be found , and that unity and collaboration If not with Concordia University , wisconsin , that there's other players that could possibly . The Lord is the Lord of the Harvest right .

He owns it all that other partners would even come forward for creative , creative problem solving . This is a good day . Even in the midst of struggle and trial , which is inevitable , we have Jesus . He is King and Lord over all things and , pat , thank you for staying engaged in the conversation and coming off the side .

I know you're just , you're doing your thing , you're reading , you're writing the last question before I let you go . What is occupying your days ? I love your history books . I just watched a documentary yesterday about Theodore Roosevelt , pat , his biography . You talk about a Renaissance man who did everything turn of the century . But , yeah , what are you ?

What are you reading ? What's engaging you right now , pat ? Just personally .

I'm reading a fair bit of actually sort of ancient philosophy along the way of reading the , the , the Stoics , and there's some some interesting lessons to be learned from them , including not taking this personally and ultimately not worrying too much what people think about you .

So , you know , those are probably a few lessons and , that said , again , I certainly have not hoped to contribute to any negativity , but hopefully just to round out the question here , and I'm and , by the way , I'm open to being helpful if I can be , and if not , then thanks at least to you , tim , for this opportunity . What ?

Thanks .

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