In 2012, Asbury Theological Seminary once again retained the services of Gary Hoag at Generosity Monk for the purpose of creating a study of peers with ATS. While serving as the VP of Advancement at Denver Seminary, Gary Hoag completed a similar study which involved eight different evangelical schools. The 2011 study, commissioned and presented by Jay Mansur at Asbury Theological Seminary, was launched with a two-fold purpose. First, the study was to provide fresh research which included data both before and after the worst of “The Great Recession.” In addition, the study would re-open the doors of peer learning by including more evangelical schools (a wider base) and increasing the amount and type of data gathered. The 2012 study retained those two purposes and added two more. The data was expanded to add more information about communication and institutional planning. In addition, we hosted a networking session at the 2012 DIAP Conference in San Antonio (disclosure: I served as the Chair of the Steering Committee for the 2012 DIAP Conference).
After the study was completed and the findings written in a report produced by Gary Hoag, I created a graphical and dynamic presentation of the data. After creating the first draft of the presentation, I collaborated with Gary to make the final adjustments and the presentation was shared with the 12 schools during the networking session at DIAP. Like the previous year, we created the presentation so that peer schools would have a tool which could be used to present the data to their various stakeholders. The networking enabled us to talk more about actions we had taken as a result of the research as well as learn even more from the peers in the room. Since DIAP, the presentation has been shared with various stakeholders.
As I did in 2011, I felt this experience was a great opportunity to not only serve my peers, but also learn a great deal about what is and is not working at various evangelical schools within ATS. We are all part of the system of theological education so it was great to share data and learn from each other in this way.
Technical Details: The presentation graphics were designed in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Prezi is the tool used to present the graphics.
