M. George Allen has chaired the board at St. John’s University School of Theology Seminary, a Roman Catholic school in Collegeville, Minnesota, since its inception as a separate school of theology two years ago. He had previously been on the board of regents of St. John’s University for more than eight years. He is now retired from his position as senior vice president, research and development, with the 3M Company.
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you became chair?
I didn’t know just how good this school is—how outstanding the staff and students are, and how much faith is resplendent throughout the whole organization. I knew it was a good school, but I didn’t know how good until I became chair.
What one piece of advice do you have for new chairs?
Get to know your fellow board members very well. These people are tremendous resources.
What one accomplishment would you like to have remembered from your term of service?
What I would most like to accomplish is to increase the endowment to the point where tuition is free. It’s absolutely achievable and, in my opinion, essential.
Additional words of wisdom:
I think it should be the goal of every board of trustees to put their schools in a financial position that precludes the need for student tuition. It’s not fair to ask our graduates to enter a calling saddled with thousands of dollars of debt.
Beverly Bell Winslow has served on the board of New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Brunswick, New Jersey, since 1995. She became chair in July of 1997. New Brunswick is affiliated with the Reformed Church in America. She earns her livelihood as a partner in the firm of Payne, Wood & Littlejohn, a general law practice, but she is also an ordained minister.
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you became chair?
I didn’t know how many duties I would be taking on in addition to chairing meetings. I also have come to realize the extent of a chair’s involvement in issues affecting theological education within the denomination as a whole and the level of representation at various denominational meetings. A board chair’s input as the voice of the school can be far-reaching.
What one piece of advice do you have for new chairs?
Be prepared to be available at all times so you’re always involved in the resolution of issues as they come up, and be prepared to find ways to accommodate the various interests on the board so they all have a fair hearing. Actually, that may be two things, but they are very much interrelated.
What one accomplishment would you like to have remembered from your term of service?
I would like to have it said that I helped build a strong, very engaged board of trustees. This is not a board that comes and reads reports. The members come and work in our meetings and outside as well.
Additional words of wisdom:
A chair’s major responsibility is to make sure everyone is heard. That means accomplishing goals or tasks in ways that satisfy a diverse group. The best way is to be open and encourage questions. I want to make everyone feel they can come to me.
Ken Hall has served on the board of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond (Virginia) since 1994. He began his two-year term as chair in March, 1998. He is chairman of the board of Hall Contracting Corp., a firm engaging in heavy and industrial construction. Formerly a teacher, he started the business with a tractor and trencher in 1954.
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you became chair?
I wish I had realized how critical financial support is to the ongoing growth of a seminary and its needs. Part of our pressure has been due to our fast growth and the fact that we have only $3 million in endowments. We are nearing completion of a $10 million Build-A-Dream Campaign, $2 million of which will go into endowments.
What one piece of advice do you have for new chairs?
Listen to the board; they are a tremendous resource. We have twenty-four of the finest Christian individuals on ours.
What one accomplishment would you like to have remembered from your term of service?
It’s been a team effort, but we’ve moved our school from its beginning using facilities we rented from the Presbyterians to where we have now bought our first building—Watts Hall, a beautiful old building which we’ve renovated and refurbished. We’re now trying to make a deal on Virginia Hall next door and looking at Kramer Hall as a dormitory. These facilities have become available to us thanks to the Presbyterian School of Christian Education merging with Union Seminary across the street
Additional words of wisdom:
We’ve seen the proof that God always makes the resources available to accomplish His work. Our school’s growth has been strong since its founding, and we now participate in a consortium with Union Seminary, Presbyterian School of Christian Education, and Virginia Commonwealth University, which has been of mutual benefit.
David Hasiuk joined the board of Biblical Theological Seminary in 1994 and has served as its chair since October 1998. He is vice president, investments, in the Philadelphia brokerage firm of Fahmestock & Co.
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you became chair?
I wish I had known more about my colleagues on the board; it would have helped in determining whom to approach with requests about undertaking particular tasks. I probably would have made different choices in a few instances if I had had better knowledge of some of my board members.
What one piece of advice do you have for new chairs?
Get as much information as you can when you have to make a decision, and get it primarily through the president.
What one accomplishment would you like to have remembered from your term of service?
I hope to move the board toward a better and more focused, more formal goal-setting and assessment process. I see this as a positive step so the board will be able to measure specifics of achievement in evaluating the president and itself. When we say we’ve had a good year, we want to be able to point to specific accomplishments, to say this is what we wanted to do and we did it.
Additional words of wisdom:
The board chair’s key and most crucial relationship is with president. For it to be a positive and effective partnership, both individuals need to make an intentional effort. At the beginning of my term as chair, I had the opportunity to talk to Moody Bible Institute president, Joe Stowell, for about an hour at a program we were both attending. I asked him what he thought were the characteristics of a good chair. The nature of our conversation was objective—“positional”—and the candor that encouraged was, I think, beneficial to us both. It certainly helped me approach my time as chair with a better understanding.
Ronald Hartgerink has been on the board of Western Theological Seminary, a school of the Reformed Church in America, since 1995. He has been chair of the board of the Holland, Michigan school since 1998. He is now senior vice president for research and development of Catalytica, Inc., a technology and pharmaceutical company. He previously worked for twenty years at Exxon, holding various leadership positions in research and development, before becoming president and CEO of Wyckoff, Inc., a company manufacturing pharmaceutical active ingredients.
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you became chair?
I wasn’t aware that the intensity of the job as chair would be at least triple that of being a board member.
What one piece of advice would you give to a new chair?
Tap into the enormous amount of goodwill and skills represented by the seminary’s administration, faculty and students, and embodied in fellow board members.
What one accomplishment would you like to have remembered from your term of service?
I’m just getting started, but, looking ahead, I hope over the next few years we will provide the foundation for the growth of the seminary as driven by the needs of our Reformed Church in America.
Additional words of wisdom:
Know exactly who the seminary’s customers are and bring their views and requirements to the forefront of each board meeting. Over the last ten to twenty years, successful businesses have learned to put their customers first in virtually all they do. For some businesses this came naturally, and they had already had a strong customer focus for years. For others the transition came with great difficulty and required cultural change or the businesses failed. Each seminary also has its own key customers, although I find that people in academia would prefer to call customers, constituents. What matters is that seminary boards conscientiously identify the seminary’s key customers and orient the board’s attention to satisfying those customers. The board may identify more than one customer. I have found that the process of identifying and prioritizing key constituents can generate energetic and very useful strategic discussions at the board level. A major consideration for both businesses and seminaries is striking a balance between providing what the customer wants and leading the customers toward the things they really need although they may not yet know it. Satisfying a customer does not imply a passive acceptance of all the customer’s perceived requirements but rather engaging in a vigorous dialog and negotiation about where you and the customer should be headed together. This process must be founded on a careful search for and understanding of the will of God, informed by excellent research and scholarship.
Patricia E. Kern has been on the board of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Illinois, since 1982 and began her term as chair in September of 1998. She is primarily a homemaker but has helped out with her husband’s business, which he started in 1959; they manufacture stand-by generators ranging in size from home use to those for hospitals and nursing homes.
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you became chair?
Since I’ve been on the board so long, I knew pretty much everything I needed to know. I’ve had no surprises.
What one piece of advice do you have for new chairs?
The most important thing is to find out what the mission of your school is, the overall plan to execute that mission, and what you need to make the mission a reality in the line of people, resources, facilities.
What one accomplishment would you like to have remembered from your term of service?
During my term we will be filling three faculty chairs, which is an exciting prospect for me. I’d like it said that we did that well.
Additional words of wisdom:
To be the chair you have to have a passion for your school. Our school’s culture and mindset is proudly evangelical, and we approach everything from that perspective. Having a board such as mine, where we have 100 percent financial support and a strong commitment from everyone makes the chair’s job much easier.
Anne McDermiad began serving on the board of Queen’s Theological College, the United Church of Canada school in Kingston, Ontario, in 1997. She assumed the chair when the previous incumbent stepped down. She is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada. Her parish, a “part-time” assignment of about twenty-four hours per week, is on Wolfe Island, the first of the Thousand Islands running the length of the St. Lawrence River from the end of Lake Ontario. She was formerly the archivist at Queen’s University.
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you became chair?
I’ve learned that it takes a great deal more time than I thought it would, but the resources (including board members) are available to make the job rewarding.
What one piece of advice do you have for new chairs?
Be intentional about having a relationship of trust and rapport with the president/principal. It’s like a good marriage; you have to keep the lines of communication open and respect each other.
What one accomplishment would you like to have remembered from your term of service?
We have begun the process of assessing how the board functions, aided by an In Trust seminar. The desired end will be to improve and enhance the board’s structure so that we will function more effectively in the future while being responsive to the present situation. My goal is to see us making the best use of people and resources.
Additional words of wisdom:
Since it’s the board’s responsibility to help guide and implement the college’s long-range plan, it’s important to be sure that we are set up to do that in the best way possible. External input can be exceedingly helpful, whether it’s a formal seminar session or the informal sharing of experiences over a cup of coffee.
Bishop Mark Ramseth has been on the board of the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California, since 1987. He became it’s chair in 1992. He is the Bishop of the Montana Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you became chair?
I wish I had known more about the culture and ethos of the seminary community—students, faculty, and staff.
What one piece of advice do you have for new chairs?
Learn and be discerning about the community’s ethos.
What one accomplishment would you like to have remembered from your term of service?
We’ve brought on a new president and dean and brought about a sense of financial stability by the development of the board with help from ATS.
Additional words of wisdom:
Being connected to a theological board enhances one’s life. My service on the board is a good example of a quotation from novelist Gail Godwin in her book Evensong: “Vocation is that which makes one more than one is.” I feel that’s been the effect of my time on the board.