Academic Dean’s Blog

What’s new this coming fall semester at Kyiv Theological Seminary? My answer to the question is: Diploma Programs in Christian Educations, Church Planting, Pastoral Leadership, Pastoral Chaplaincy Leadership, World Missions and Youth Ministry.

I am happy to share that this morning the Executive Council of KTS approved launching of new Diploma Program. It is our noble intention as we open another program in our seminary is providing better and diverse study opportunities to those evangelical believers who are busy with their work and cannot commit for full-time study. This diploma program is going to be our first part-time track that provides transferable credits which could be used as building blocks for earning a degree at our school. This new program will use the current schedule, teachers and courses, and such approach ensures efficient use of seminary resources.

Students will come twice in a year for two weeks of residential study and earn total of 39 credits over 3 years of study. Here are general divisions of the study plan:

• KTS Core (Bible, Church History, General Ed., and Theology): 18 credits
• Specialization: 18 credits
• Specialized practicum: 3 credits

Beside spreading this news our academic office has to update admissions application to include new programs. General admissions requirements are not changed as well as academic expectations from these new students.

Here is complete calendar of Kyiv Theological Seminary Faculty Meetings for this fall semester 2008. These are regular meetings that take place twice a month.

Thursday, Aug 21 @ 2:15pm - Faculty Meeting
Thursday, Sep 4 @ 2:15pm - Faculty Meeting
Thursday, Sep 18 @ 2:15pm - Faculty Meeting
Thursday, Oct 2 @ 2:15pm - Faculty Meeting
Thursday, Oct 16 @ 2:15pm - Faculty Meeting
Thursday, Nov 6 @ 2:15pm - Faculty Meeting
Thursday, Nov 20 @ 2:15pm – Faculty Meeting
Thursday, Dec 4 @ 2:15pm - Faculty Meeting
Thursday, Dec 18 @ 2:15pm - Faculty Meeting

KTS Calendar is available online.

Today the Executive Council of Kyiv Theological Seminary approved two new undergraduate majors: Chaplaincy and World Missions. These two majors will expand the seminary’s offer from current five to seven undergraduate programs in bachelor of theology degree. These programs will provide evangelical churches with opportunities to train believers for service in Ukraine and other Eurasian countries.

The mission statements of the new programs are as follows:

The mission of the Chaplaincy major at Kyiv Theological Seminary is to give the students deep biblical and theological understanding, and to train them to be effective providers of spiritual and pastoral care for people who are limited in satisfaction of their social and religious needs in the armed forces, in hospitals and in prison.

The mission of the World Missions major at Kyiv Theological Seminary is to prepare students theologically and culturally to effectively serve Christ in other cultures, in order to help fulfill the great commission.

The seminary will partner with the All-Ukrainian Military Christian Brotherhood and Olive Branch International in offering Chaplaincy major; with Equippers Network International in offering World Missions major.

I am so glad that our hard work that was done over months in Curriculum Committee and with program directors has its fruition in EC approval. Today KTS Executive Council and seminary President Anatoly Prokopchuk have made another step of faith that we all pray here would bring more glory to our risen Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through service of our graduates in years to come.

Yet this approval of the Proposals is only the beginning of greater work: student recruitment, student training and then sending graduates into the fields and helping them in fulfilling their calling. Please pray for us as we walk this path of faith. Please pray for seminary renovation. We know that we need more dormitory space because God is growing us for even greater work for himself. We humble ourselves under his hand, we seek further his will and commit ourselves to walk in faith as he leads us.

Easter Break this year is late in spring semester but it was so refreshing to spend whole week with my family. I am expecting this month to be very intensive as we wrap up the semester and prepare for next fall semester. What can we expect this month as long as seminary events are concerned?

Events this week:
KTS Open House – May 6 (Tomorrow!)
Executive Council meeting – May 8
M3 modular students are in session for next two weeks

Events next week:
Faculty Meeting, regular – May 15 @2:15 PM (location: A21)
Talbot MA session – May 19-23

End of the month:
Graduation – May 24
M1 Gen Ed session: May 26-June 6
Faculty In-service – May 26-27-28

This month is specially filled with meetings and events for me. Some things develop with great pace. I even feel that I hardly catching up with them, monitor them or contribute to them. At the same time I am deeply grateful for being a part of many things that happen in our seminary and that I am able to contribute.

Tomorrow’s faculty meeting is special

We’ll focus our attention on ATutor – an Open Source Web-based Learning Content Management System. I believe that ATutor will help us to enhance our educational influence on our students directly by utilizing its features but also indirectly by improving our faculty – staff – student communications. Do you know any other open-source web-based systems that could be used in higher education institution for collaboration and/or learning, please leave your comment below.

Past meeting with Indiana Wesleyan University leaders

A notable meeting happen on Monday, March 10th, when group of administrators and doctoral students from Indiana Wesleyan University arrived on Kyiv Seminary campus. Seminary President Dr. Anatoly Prokopchuk hosted the meeting in his office. This was our first meeting of formal introduction and acquaintance with IWU educational resources that might be of interest to KTS. I deeply appreciate the attitude of the group that came to Kyiv to explore opportunities available in our country. I am glad that our seminary is one of their stops on the way of serving. I pray for Lord’s guidance in our relationships between IWU and KTS for the sake of His glory and kingdom. We particularly discussed their programs in leadership and learned more about their desire to expand leadership program to a place like KTS, Lord willing.

Indeed, we can talk about current leadership crisis in our country in every sphere of life – political, social or religious. Businesses and churches alike need revitalization with new leadership blood. But difference between the two is warranty of security for latter that rooted in Jesus’ promise to preserve his church from even gates of hell. Even when church leadership does poor job, Christ’s church still has a hope of bright future. History of the church is filled with evedences of this. Foundational principles for leadership must be instilled again in new generation of leaders with renewal of mindset, which is impossible without God’s word and principles that are found in it. This country desperately needs educational programs that address leadership crisis with biblically derived solutions.

Whatever the program we establish independently or in partnership with another institution of any kind, my responsibility is to make sure it harmonized with our mission, shares our values and help us to make another step towards our dream expressed in vision statement, that particularly reads, “an international center of relevant training, instructive resources, and nurturing networks for evangelical Christians in ministry, through collaboration with local churches and parachurch organizations.” More on that you can read in recent post Driving Statements for the Seminary.

Forthcoming visit of Talbot School of Theology leaders

Another notable event of the month is a visit of some members of Talbot School of Theology administration. Next Wednesday I have a meeting with Dr. Dennis Dirks. Main item for meeting’s agenda is Talbot’s Master of Arts program that is offered here at KTS.

Just want to put here as a reminder forthcoming dates for Seminary Faculty meetings:

Spring 2008

• February 28
• March 13
• April 3
• April 17
• May 15

A rule of thumb for scheduling faculty meetings: every first and third Thursday of a month. Exceptions to the rule that influence meeting schedule may happen.

Last week, Feb 27, 2008, at Faculty Meeting we disband old and started new ad-hoc Curriculum Committee. The term of service of the committee is spring semester 2008. We have three residential faculty members serving on this committee with me as its head. The members of Curriculum Committee are Andrew Rist, Richard Perhai and Jason Gupta. Main objectives (list is not exhaustive) of the committee are: work on development and review of proposals to start three undergraduate majors with connection to our Bachelor of Theology degree.

We are happy to provide more relevant and timely information to our students and faculty. Now anyone can access Weekly Class Schedule from anywhere in the universe where they have Internet access available. So if you are a student here at KTS or faculty, residential or visiting, I invite you to visit/bookmark this page that contains Weekly Schedule.

More significant page though in my opinion is Calendar of KTS available in English and Russian templates. Content is the same one but wrapping it up in different language template was possible thanks to Google customizing options.

I hope you can enjoy our calendar just as someone enjoyed the fruits.

Faculty Meetings
May 3 @ 2:15 PM
May 31 @ 2:15 PM

Curriculum and Schedule Committee
May 1 @ 2:15 PM (AO)
determined at meeting