A Full and Welcoming Week
The beginning of things is important. It is a punctiliar moment that can define the ethos and tone. We see this in Scripture—“In the beginning God”—and Tolkien’s The Hobbit—“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Or, in Churchill’s statement of “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat” when he first speaks to the House of Commons as prime minister. Likewise, the first week of Southwestern Seminary’s fall 2018 semester possessed heightened importance to a world watching to see if Southwestern Seminary would carry on after the spring and summer events that impacted the Southern Baptist Convention and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Not only has Southwestern carried on, it has done so with enthusiasm and a welcoming spirit.
Welcome Week
The first week of the new academic year at Southwestern Seminary and Scarborough College was one filled with excitement, fellowship, fun and food. Returning students, faculty and Student Life staff embraced the new students into the Southwestern family, helping them learn about Texas, Fort Worth and the campus. Welcoming activities included move-in days for the men’s and women’s dormitories and perimeter student housing, late-night laser tag in the RAC, copious dinners to foster community and fellowship, post-convocation “lunch on the lawn,” library palooza, an ice cream social, a church and job fair and picnic, college and graduate student orientation, and much more.
The climax of the first week is always convocation, when the faculty and students are formally convened or called together (from the Latin convocare) to begin the academic year. The faculty processed in their formal regalia to gather and welcome the students and to punctuate the students’ experience with prayer and a message from the president. Interim President D. Jeffrey Bingham charged all Southwesterners to exhibit the biblical virtues of self-denial, taking last place, and orienting one’s entire life around serving others. A summary of convocation can be found here, and the complete video may be watched here.
To explore all the exciting Welcome Week activities, view this week’s posts on Facebook, Instagram/swbts and Instagram/college, and Twitter.
Incoming Student Class
The incoming new class begins to epitomize Revelation 7, speaking 13 languages and coming from 25 countries: Argentina, Brazil, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Syria, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The number of new students that the admissions office has processed is up significantly, and the number of students present at New Student Orientation and Welcome Week activities was noticeably larger. The official class enrollment will be determined on census day, Sept. 4. Census day occurs a few days after classes begin in order to allow students the opportunity to finalize their class schedules. There are numerous metrics the six SBC seminaries use to track student numbers—nonduplicating headcount, full-time equivalents (FTE), and SBC FTE, etc.—and they are each used for different purposes and different reports, including trustees, accreditation agencies, SBC executive committee, and SBC Book of Reports. Enrollment numbers gathered on census day are used to evaluate these various metrics.
In Conclusion
Jesus is on the throne. God’s Word remains the campus’ main textbook. The chapel schedule is set. Students have their syllabi and laptops, and syllabus shock is beginning to take effect. Professors are immersed in teaching 342 fall class sections and walking around repeating the phrase “It’s in the syllabus.”
To be sure, the semester has started—God-called men and women are being equipped for a lifetime of ministry! To remain updated about campus events, visit here or download the Southwestern App.
