Upcoming Events

ATS announces search for director of leadership development and institutional capacity

ATS invites applications for a newly created position: director of leadership development and institutional capacity. This full-time, fully remote role represents an exciting opportunity for a mission-driven leader to strengthen theological schools across Canada and the US by supporting the people who guide them—presidents, deans, faculty leaders, and other key administrators. Listen Here.

How the ATS School for Peer Reviewers supports quality assurance and strengthens accreditation

To support the vital work of self-study and evaluation visits that constitute its accrediting processes, the Commission on Accrediting hosts an annual School for Peer Reviewers. This article examines the intensive training program, now in its eighth year, and how it prepares evaluators to exercise sound judgment and interpret standards within each school’s particular setting. Listen Here.

Know your accreditation terms

To help schools better understand language used in the Standards of Accreditation and the Commission Policies and Procedures, the Commission accrediting group regularly updates the Accreditation Key Terms and Definitions page. This page offers both quick and detailed explanations of the accreditation terms most essential to your work.

This is the newest term added to the page:

Competency-Based Theological Education (CBTE)

CBTE is an approach to learning in which students advance by demonstrating mastery of clearly defined competencies, such as knowledge, skills, and character traits, needed for ministry or ministry related professions. Schools offering 25 percent or more of a degree program through CBTE must complete ATS approval processes before implementing CBTE courses or programs.

Visit the page for the full definition.

Leading through change, leading with care

As ATS Leadership Development steering committees meet to assess current needs, a single thread runs through every conversation: the need for tools to help leaders navigate and sustain themselves through prevailing change. In this article, Chelsea B. Yarborough, ATS associate director of leadership programming, identifies three tools for sustaining leaders—like knowing the signs of professional burnout—and how work teams can move forward together. Listen Here.

Assessing student formation: a new set of core assessment tools

In this second installment on student formation, guest contributors Steven J. Sandage and Peter J. Jankowski share the Seminary Formation Assessment, a set of core tools grounded in the Relational Spirituality Model, an interdisciplinary framework for personal and spiritual formation. ATS member schools are invited to use these tools to map the terrain of formation within their student community, while students can use them to reflect on aspects of their own formation. Listen Here.

ATS ‘four core values’: rooted in the past and looking to the future

While ATS formally named its four core values fairly recently, those values reflect emphases that are threaded throughout its history. Stephen R. Graham, ATS director of context and continuity, reviews the Association’s early values statements; compares them to the current values of diversity, quality and improvement, collegiality, and leadership; and shares examples of the values in practice across the ATS membership. Listen Here.

Southern California Seminary supports African American church efforts through Pathways for Tomorrow grant 

Southern California Seminary has received a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish their Pathways for Ministry Partnerships program. The grant, funded by the Endowment's Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative, supports unprecedented opportunities for understanding the growing need in African American churches for current pastors and next-generation ministry leaders. The Pathways for Ministry Partnerships program explores pathways for seminary-level theological education and ministry formation substantially rooted in local church community and culture.