the case for a mdiv/mba hybrid

The Resonance

During the entire Dmin, it has become clear that what I’m doing would fit best within a church consulting ministry setting. Shortly after starting my DMin, I decided to put all of my research electives towards creating my Capstone project, which included the creation of Resonance LLC. The Resonance houses several things like courses, an online community, a consulting agency, and a standalone mock Seminary called The Resonance University. Creating the Resonance felt logical, as my previous firms, Equilux Consulting and VES, have served many businesses with anything relating to User Experience, Leadership Development, and Management Consulting. The pivot towards Church Consulting seemed like the logical move. 

The models we live by

Initially, I intended to make my capstone project a podcast, so starting the first week, I started interviewing guests on mental models. Mental Models affect the way we view the world and, in turn, how we act in it, and this was specifically interesting to me because I was wondering why many pastors and congregants alike are bigoted towards the queer community.  While my research quickly moved toward seminary education, it didn’t stop me from continuing the podcast. 

course

intro to resonant leadership

My first SRC consisted of researching if it would be possible to give additional training to existing faith leaders by starting up some guided cohorts. Out of this, Intro to Resonant Leadership was born. The website with all the links will give you access to the online community's course environment. Here is also access to the PowerPoint slides in PDF format with notes as well as the worksheets. I also included feedback from a batch of beta students who took the course. While the online community wasn’t successful, I kept it up so you can still view the feedback and the structure of the proposed online community. 

research

One question constantly came to mind during my ongoing research. We can hardly blame pastors for lacking leadership skills, let alone inclusive leadership skills. During my Master of Global Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, I asked what the role of seminaries is in producing inclusive leaders, but I realized that the scope of my research was too narrow. I used this Special Reading Course to increase the parameters of my previous research, to include the roles of the ATS, and to add more categories. The new categories are DEI, organizational administration, general leadership (not faith-based), human resources, and church-based leadership. I have linked the original research, the new categories, and the charts to simplify the overview.

the role of accreditation in seminary education

course

dei for faithleaders

In the ATS member schools sheet, I saw one omission that worried me: the lack of DEI training for existing faith leaders. Similar to Intro to Resonant Leadership, I wanted to create an accessible course that existing leaders could take to brush up on their skills and, simultaneously, see that DEI is not part of a woke ideology, but it would lead to a more healthy organizational culture. I took too much hay on my fork and far extended the parameters of this SRC. You’ll find attached the link to the course. Here are also the PowerPoints in PDF format with notes. Here is also include material that didn’t make the cut but seemed important due to the results of my data sheet. The immediate next course is already in development and is called HR for Faith Leaders. 

ATS COMMUNICATION

I also started communicating with some ATS representatives as part of my SRC. This communication spilled over into the summer, but I have included this communication as well. In short, I’ve tried to determine how the ATS assesses whether a seminary is proficient in teaching professional leadership and public leadership since they use those terms in their accreditation standards. The communication highlights the tension as I’m trying to get answers to this question. Towards the end of our communication, the following became clear:

  • The ATS is interested in finding out why there is a decline in the MDiv program and has done advanced surveys that helped me greatly to come to my conclusions. 

  • The ATS is interested in finding out if the terms “professional leadership” and “public leadership” are ambiguous to member schools and would like to find the answer to such a question by performing qualitative research. 

  • The ATS does not have a rubric for their assessors to help them define if member schools demonstrate teaching professional and public leadership.

  • The ATS does not seem to agree with me that the aforementioned point is a problem.  

For this reason, I am excited to hand off my initial research to a PhD candidate or pursue the PhD route myself if funding presents itself. Until then, I’d like to focus on praxis, and this communication has encouraged me to pursue an agile approach in order to get data quicker rather than waiting for qualitative data to occur.  

The largest artifact of my capstone project is the creation of a mock seminary called the Resonance University. This artifact combines everything I have worked on so far and is a preview of how it would look if we took a fourth approach to MDiv education. The first is to decrease the MDiv credit hours, the second is to do nothing, and the third is to increase the MDiv credit hours. The fourth approach, and my suggestions, is to create hybrid models that are all based on a la carte model. This has the benefit that seminaries can offer MDiv-level courses as self-paced audits to increase their dwindling revenues. It also means that students can very easily create their own degrees. Finally, and most importantly, the Resonance University proposes hybrid MDiv degrees. Three will be loosely based on existing models: Chaplaincy/MDiv, Spiritual Direction/MDiv, and Biblical Scholar/MDiv. My magnum opus, however, is to create an MBA/MDiv hybrid. Attached, you’ll find the website, a video explaining how the website works, separate PDFs of the syllabi of the courses, the course overview per degree program, and of course, a detailed proposal for an MBA/MDiv hybrid.

The Resonance University

mba/mdiv hybrid

I have been fascinated with the construction of a Master of Business Administration (MBA) stacked on top of a Master of Divinity(MDiv). MBA degrees offer everything that MDiv alumni say they lack in the research that the ATS shows. Very early in my DMin, I already noticed that combining the shortest MBA with the shortest MDiv would result in a 110-credit hour program, which is already shorter than many variants. My solution is to take the elective hours from the MDiv program and fill them with MBA credit hours and take the electives of the MBA and fill them with MDiv credit hours. In this combination, offering an MBA/MDiv hybrid in as short as 90 credit hours would be possible. This is a very valuable degree for pastors because they’ll be adept in leadership, finance, and administration. They would also be attractive to the main job market because they have an MBA and graduated with two degrees. 

My first inclination was to see if there was already something out there, and I found three constructions:

  • Larger universities have a school of religion and a school of business that collaborate with each other. For example, Yale offers a hybrid but requires students to be enrolled in both the School of Business and Religion. While they offer some integrated courses, students will still take an almost entire MBA on top of their MDiv. These students would be better off getting their MBA at a more affordable School of Business that offers it in less time. Other examples are North Park University and Duke Divinity. 

  • Some institutions work together with other business schools. For example, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary allows students to transfer up to 12 credit hours from Union University in order to get some overlap between the two degrees. It is a better solution than the first one in that it shortens the duration of the entire program. 

  • Lastly, there are two very promising Universities that offer something similar to what I am proposing.

    • United Theological Seminary also proposes a 90-credit-hour solution. They collaborated with Dakota Wesleyan University to offer a true hybrid of the two programs. You can find the program here. 

    • Palmer Seminary is part of Eastern Univerity and, as such, has also opted for a fully integrated MDiv/MBA hybrid program, resulting in a 102-credit-hour solution. The program can be found here. 

I suggest integrating it more tightly by adding a School of Business to Seminaries across the United States. Accreditation is not unfamiliar to Seminaries, and unlike MDiv degrees, the MBA degree doesn’t require professors with Ph.D. or Dmin degrees, as it is a terminal, professional degree taught by industry leaders rather than scholars. 

My hybrid program would, therefore, be 90 credit hours long and could be view here.

As shown, the MDiv will remain a rich and theological degree. Of course, some courses had to go on the chopping block, but seminaries that decide to adopt this model can decide which courses have to stay and which can go. They can even opt for a longer degree program by adding some more courses. For example, if a seminary wants to add one biblical language, they increase the credit hours to 99 and offer three levels of biblical language. Likewise, if a seminary doesn’t care about more specific preaching courses like homiletics, they can replace it with an MBA course like public speaking, and they will be free to add a course of their choosing. 

I am pleased to see that a few seminaries offer MBA/MDiv hybrids, and I would like to be part of the movement to implement this systematically. As Equilux Consulting pivoted to The Resonance, my first job after defending was to write to every single seminary in the US to offer a potential collaboration and in turn save the valuable MDiv degree from further decline.