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Board of Trustees and Southeastern Society hold fall meetings
Harper McKay, SEBTS Communications
October 17, 2016
3 MIN READ TIME

Board of Trustees and Southeastern Society hold fall meetings

Board of Trustees and Southeastern Society hold fall meetings
Harper McKay, SEBTS Communications
October 17, 2016

The Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) Board of Trustees and Southeastern Society (SES) held their bi-annual meetings Oct. 9-11 in Wake Forest.

SEBTS photo

Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, addresses board members during the school’s fall meeting.

In his presidential address to each group, Danny Akin said the school is in its seventh year of record enrollment with 3,550 students.

The spring 2016 semester had the second largest spring enrollment in SEBTS history, and SEBTS faculty taught nearly 11,000 hours of distance learning courses. Racial diversity on the campus rose from 8 percent in 2010 to 14.61 percent in 2016, and SEBTS is looking to increase that percentage every year.

SEBTS had a record year of giving, raising $1.8 million. More than 650 new donors gave to the Southeastern Fund this year, and more than 900 donors joined the SEBTS family.

The trustees:

  • Gave authorization for SEBTS to enter into a feasibility study to determine the viability of a proposed $26.5 million capital campaign to build a new student center, increase academic endowments and provide additional student aid;
  • Named Thabiti Anyabwile, senior pastor of Anacostia River Church in Washington D.C., as an interim board member to replace Todd Jones who resigned from the board due to relocation for his job;
  • Approved several curriculum revisions and course creations for both SEBTS and The College at Southeastern.

Trustees concluded their visit in a chapel service with SES members and students. SEBTS President Danny Akin spoke from Matthew chapter five about the power and purpose of Christian witness.

“You are the only authentic salt this world will ever taste and you are the only authentic light this world will ever see,” he said. “We are to stand in radical contrast to those who are opposing the work of God in this world because we are fundamentally different.”

Akin also reminded listeners that God saved them for a purpose.

“God did not redeem us and call us into His Kingdom to hide us, and He did not save us … to be silent saints,” he said. “He called us to be the light of the world … a light put on display by our Savior to the nations.”

SES members learned about current happenings at SEBTS and attended sessions on missions in Nepal with SEBTS alumni, the history of SEBTS with senior professor of Baptist studies Keith Harper, and the Reformation with assistant professor of church history and Reformation studies, Stephen Eccher.

The SES consists of men and women who partner with SEBTS in training students to serve the church and fulfill the Great Commission. SES members give $1,000 or more annually to the seminary.

The trustees and SES members will hold their spring meetings April 16-18, 2017.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Harper McKay is the news and information specialist at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.)