Southeastern undergraduate program highlighted with new majors, name change

by Jason Hall

Trustees of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary approved key changes to the school’s undergraduate program during their spring meeting here Tuesday, including new majors with an express focus on missions and pastoral ministry, as well as a new name for the school.

Changes approved by the trustees include a name change for the school’s flagship degree program, the Bachelor of Arts, and new majors within that program. The school will now offer a Bachelor of Arts in Christian Studies degree, as opposed to the former Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies.

Further, the school will now offer bachelor’s level studies concentrating in Pastoral Ministry and Missions.

Trustees also decided the undergraduate school will now be known as The College at Southeastern, a change which better reflects one of its biggest strengths – its status as an undergraduate school of a thriving Southern Baptist seminary. The college was previously known as Southeastern College at Wake Forest, a name which sometimes caused confusion with Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.

“One of the most appealing things about The College at Southeastern is that we are a college on the campus of a seminary, and our status as part of Southeastern Seminary allows our students to take advantage of academic programs, faculty resources, and a way of life on campus that are not available at other undergraduate institutions,” said Peter Schemm, dean of the college. “This name change reflects that strength.”

The new degrees in Pastoral Ministry and Missions provide an opportunity for Southeastern to challenge students academically and prepare them for ministry.

“Our desire is to meet the needs of those students, particularly Southern Baptist students, who come here to prepare for a lifetime of vocational ministry,” Schemm said. “These new majors allow us to appeal to potential students in a new and exciting way.”

The Pastoral Ministry major offers classes in pastoral ministry, counseling, discipleship and Bible exposition. The Missions major features an emphasis on intercultural studies, church planting and anthropology, and also includes a semester spent ministering overseas with the International Mission Board.

“The addition of the missions major demonstrates Southeastern’s commitment to missions on both the undergraduate and graduate level,” Schemm said. “It also allows us to integrate an important component of our core curriculum – History of Ideas seminars – toward a very practical end: students will take what they have learned concerning great ideas and engage the nations with the greatest story, the message of the gospel.”

Further, a major in Theology was also included in the curriculum changes. That major was formerly known as the Christian Worldview program, but the name was changed to better reflect the overall emphasis on a wide variety of theological issues, including systematic theology, worldview training, and apologetics.

These new and retooled majors bring to seven the number of second majors offered to bachelor’s students at Southeastern: Pastoral Ministry, Missions, Theology, Humanities, English, History and Music.

Trustees also approved a new initiative called the Collegiate Partnership program, which will allow qualified undergraduates from religious studies programs – including Southeastern’s own undergraduate program and those of other Baptist colleges and universities – to take a reduced number of hours to receive a Master of Divinity degree from Southeastern Seminary.

In essence, the partnership program allows these students the chance to test out of certain core classes they may have taken at the undergraduate level, or in some cases substitute upper-level seminars for classes they have already had. In many cases, it will allow qualified students to receive a Master of Divinity degree in two to two and a half years, as opposed to the current average of three to four years.