For More Ministers

Perhaps the surest sign of sound health in the postwar burgeoning of U.S. Protestantism is the resurgence of the seminaries. None has advanced more consistently in number and caliber of students than Manhattan's illustrious 122-year-old Union Theological Seminary. Last week Union prepared to take the biggest stride of its postwar expansion: a $16 million development program.

Interdenominational Union Theological Seminary is a grey Gothic quadrangle nestled in the center of one of the most prestigious concentrations of culture in the U.S. Surrounding it on Morningside Heights, overlooking the Hudson River on one side and Harlem's tenements on the other, are Columbia University and its Teachers College, plus Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Riverside Church, Juilliard School of Music, International House, and the Interchurch Center, which will be headquarters for many denominations as well as the National and World Council of Churches.

The Seminaries Within. The facilities offered by such distinguished company have attracted students from all over the U.S. and the world. The present student body of 669--more than doubled since the prewar peak--numbers 33 seminarians from the Far East, two from the Middle East, 25 from Europe, five from Africa, seven from Australia and New Zealand, 23 from Canada and five from the Caribbean area.

Since 1939, Union has included a Presbyterian seminary within its interdenominational walls; 140-year-old Auburn Theological Seminary, with its own board of directors and a faculty of five, has special responsibility for training Union's Presbyterian students, numbering 165.

Under energetic President Henry Pitney Van Dusen, pioneer of the ecumenical movement, Union's topflight faculty includes Theologians Reinhold Niebuhr (vice president of the seminary) and John C. Bennett, Philologist James Muilenburg, such noted preachers as Methodist Dr. Ralph Sockman and Riverside Church's Dr. Robert James McCracken. But maintaining such a faculty, as well as housing a student body that includes more and more women and children (46% of Union's seminarians are married), is posing a problem.

Bull Sessions. Immediate objective in Union's new $16 million campaign is $4,075,000, of which $2,600,000 is to be earmarked for a new 16-story residence hall with apartments for married students and faculty families, plus single rooms for unmarried students. But the new housing plan will mean more to Union than mere shelter. Says Board Chairman Benjamin Strong: "The preparation of ministers requires constant and close association of teachers and students. Conversations in the halls, bull sessions in student rooms or faculty apartments, everything that goes on in the Union quadrangle has its place in sharpening the spiritual awareness and broadening the outlook of the future minister."

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