Academic Training, Planning Sessions in Latin America
by Steve Hardy, International Program Director For Scholars
Last fall, I spent a significant amount of time in Latin America. For most of this time, I was part of a teaching team, working under the umbrella of the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE) and its Latin American partner AETAL (Associação Evangélica de Educação Teológica na América Latina). ICETE offers a series of weeklong professional training seminars for academic deans. It has been my experience that many of those who are asked to give leadership to Bible schools and seminaries have minimal practical experience or training in areas of academic administration.
I was working with Dr. Fritz Deininger, the former dean of the Bangkok Bible College and Seminary, Dr. Pablo Sywulka, the former director of the Seminário Teológico Centro-Americano in Guatemala and Dr. Orbelina Equizabel, now a professor at Biola University, but the former academic dean at SETECA. We met from November 10-13 in João Pessoa, the most easterly point in Brazil with just over 20 leaders from 12 different training institutions, and then from November 17-21 at SETECA in Guatemala with another 22 people for 13 training institutions Almost all of the participants were academic deans, though we also had several school directors. We looked at the nature of a dean’s role, focusing specifically on issues of administrating, time-usage, and team-development. We also spent time examining the personal qualities needed for this position. The plan is to hold these training workshops over a period of three years. In 2009 we will look at the role of the dean in curriculum development and in creating a learning community. In 2010, we will then look at the role of the dean in human resource development, i.e. knowing how to select, encourage, manage and train both teachers and staff. It struck me that this was time well spent, and I’m wondering the extent to which these professional training workshops could serve many of our former Langham scholars.
LPRC FOR SPANISH-SPEAKING LATIN AMERICA – QUITO, ECUADOR (15-17 November 2009)
In between the two academic dean’s training workshops, I enjoyed being able to be a part of this gathering of key people (under the joint leadership of Milton Acosta and Ruth Padilla De Borst) who enthusiastically share their time and wisdom to help Langham be more effective in what it tries to do at the Langham Partnership Regional Council. Representatives came from all corners of the continent, from Mexico to Argentina, and built upon the work of previous meetings. Although my greatest joy was simply to be with some incredibly good people, I was also encouraged by enthusiastic reports on the many Langham-related ministries going on throughout the region. One of those includes the speedy development of a Latin American Bible Commentary.