Disagreement could loom over Carver School assets
O'Brien |
Mohler |
Although WMU Executive Director Dellanna O'Brien and Southern Seminary President Albert Mohler reportedly met to discuss the subject two years ago, and the WMU executive board was briefed on it, no action has yet resulted.
"It's not a dead issue," O'Brien said in a Jan. 20 interview. "We've just been sort of at a stalemate with Southern not quite finalized on the disposition of the Carver School."
O'Brien said WMU leaders had determined "not to take any action until it was clear the trust funds were not being used as they were given."
Now that final disposition of the Carver School has been announced, WMU may take a fresh look at the question, O'Brien acknowledged.
What's most likely at stake is several hundred thousand dollars of endowment funds, including funding for scholarships and an endowed chair that bears WMU's name. Although WMU also gave the seminary three parcels of real estate valued at $799,500 along with the Carver School in 1963, WMU has given no indication it would seek to reclaim that property.
The assets and endowments of the Carver School were raised largely through donations from Baptist women across the South through the first half of this century.
Mohler spoke of the transfer to Campbellsville only in terms of the Carver School's recent history. "What is being transferred to Campbellsville is basically the legal entity known as the Carver School of Church Social Work established by Southern Seminary in 1983," he said in a statement.
Campbellsville University is located in the town of Campbellsville, 70 miles southeast of Louisville. University officials said they could reopen the Carver School as early as next fall. They are seeking a place in the Louisville area to house the school.
Whether the Carver School that existed as part of Southern Seminary from 1983 to 1997 can be separated from its predecessor organizations could become a key point in determining the fate of the assets.
Carver¼s Roots in WMU Training School
The Carver School of Church Social Work, as it was known in its final decade at Southern Seminary, had origins in the WMU Training School founded in Louisville in 1907. At the time, Southern Seminary did not admit female students, so the Training School was one of the few opportunities available to Baptist women for ministry preparation.
From its inception, the WMU Training School emphasized hands-on missions and social ministry, long before social work had been identified in America as a profession.
In 1952 the training school was renamed the Carver School of Missions and Social Work. It was named for William Owen Carver, who was instrumental in forming the WMU Training School and was its first professor.
Although the Carver School already offered degrees in social work, by the late 1950s and early 1960s, accrediting agencies were gaining prominence nationwide and the school's leaders determined the master's program in social work needed to be accredited.
Carver Merges with Southern
According to historical documents and individuals familiar with the Carver School's history, that prompted WMU and the Carver School trustees to request a merger with Southern Seminary. The Carver School had been told accreditation would not be possible unless the school were a part of an already established and accredited academic institution.
When the renamed Carver School of Church Social Work finally offered an accredited degree in 1984, it became the only accredited school of church social work in America.
That came to an end with the 1995 vote by seminary trustees to close the Carver School after a showdown between Mohler and Carver School Dean Diana Garland.
WMU Questions Endowment Status
Later, WMU officials began investigating whether the national women's organization had claim to Carver School assets transferred to or directed to benefit the seminary in 1963.
When Southern Seminary took over the Carver School from WMU in 1963, the seminary received three parcels of land, including the building which housed the Carver School. The seminary also became the provisional beneficiary of several endowment funds related to the Carver School.
Six years prior to the formal merger of the Carver School with Southern Seminary, the WMU executive board gave all these endowment funds to the Southern Baptist Foundation to act as trustee. The total value at the time of the transaction in 1957 was $355,547.
O'Brien said she did not know the exact value of the endowment funds today but suggested it is "several hundred thousand dollars."
According to the legal documents executed at the time, these funds were given to the Foundation with the earnings to be used to further the purpose of the Carver School. When the Carver School merged with Southern Seminary in 1963, the WMU executive board took further action to make Southern the recipient of earnings from these funds "provided that the seminary uses such income in conformity with the requirements of the trust agreement" between WMU and the Foundation.
If WMU decides to pursue a claim to redirect funds away from Southern Seminary, the argument likely will hinge on whether the seminary is fulfilling the purpose for which the monies were given.
Part of that endowment has funded an academic chair at Southern. When the Carver School was in operation, the chair was called the WMU professor of social work. It traditionally was held by the dean of the Carver School.
Now that the Carver School no longer exists at Southern, the seminary has appointed a professor of black church studies to the chair, which it now calls WMU professor of Christian ministries.
Social Ministry Training to Continue
"Southern Seminary is fully committed to continue training and education in specialized missions and social ministries in keeping with both the spirit and the substance of the transfer agreement," Mohler said. "Though we are no longer conducting a specialized program of social work leading to a master of social work degree, we will, in keeping with our Great Commission mandate, continue to train missionaries and ministers in Christian social ministries."
At another time, however, Mohler had said that social-work education is "not congruent" with the seminary¼s mission.
The seminary's current academic catalogue lists 37 courses under the heading "church social work," but none of those courses are offered in the spring 1998 semester. And the seminary's 1997-98 directory of faculty and students lists no faculty members with a specific assignment of teaching social work.
Should WMU determine that Southern Seminary no longer is fulfilling the purpose for which the Carver School funds were given, WMU officials would have to direct the Southern Baptist Foundation to change the beneficiary.
Whether the Foundation, which now is a subsidiary of the SBC Executive Committee, could or would agree to such a change has not been made known.
Purpose Statement Critical to Dispute
The trust agreement between WMU and the Foundation states that the funds given to the Foundation's care are to be used "for the use and benefit of the Carver School of Missions and Social Work ... and for the use and benefit of any institution doing like work into which the said Carver School of Missions and Social Work may hereafter be merged or with which it may hereafter be consolidated, including any institution doing the same work controlled by the SBC which may hereafter become the legal successor of the said Carver School of Missions and Social Work."
Further indication of the intent of WMU and Carver School leaders is seen in the recommendation presented by Carver School trustees to the SBC annual meeting in 1962. The third part of that recommendation, which was adopted by the convention, read: "That the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary be requested to accept the assets of the Carver School and to operate its program in such manner as will in good faith seek to achieve the purposes set forth in the Carver School charter."
The Carver School charter states the school's purpose as this: "To provide and maintain a school under the management and control of the SBC of the highest spiritual and educational standards for the training of personnel in church social work and specialized missionary service for the propagation of the Christian faith."
That purpose statement, found in Article 2 of the Carver School charter, also is cited in the trust agreement between WMU and the Southern Baptist Foundation.
After citing that statement, the trust adds: "Whenever the Southern Baptist Convention, a corporation, or its legal successor shall cease to conduct a school under the control of said SBC or its legal successor for uses and purposes as set forth in said Article 2 of the Articles of Incorporation of the Carver School of Missions and Social Work as quoted above, the trust shall terminate and the corpus shall be returned to the WMU, auxiliary to the SBC, or its legal successor in interest." (ABP/BP)
