Renewing Chelsea Sq. ~ Desmond Tutu Education Center ~ An Interview with the Very Rev. Ward B. Ewing

An Interview with the Very Rev. Ward B. Ewing

Dean and President, The General Theological Seminary

Question: The primary mission of The General Theological Seminary has always been to prepare new generations of leaders for the Episcopal Church.  Now, though, you are developing a part of your historic campus as the Desmond Tutu Education Center: a facility that will house degree and non-degree programs for laity and clergy alike, that will help GTS reach out to people from other faith traditions, and that will be available for use by other not-for-profit groups.  To what extent is this project a new departure for GTS?

Ward B. Ewing: We remain what we have been since 1817: an institution principally engaged in the preparation of clergy and lay Church leaders.  That will never change.

But the world changes--and so we, too, must evolve, as we pursue our mission to serve the Church in a changing world.
We need fresh points of contact with the more practice-oriented culture of Episcopal congregations, and the congregations in turn need points of contact with the more theoretical culture of the academy.  The Tutu Center will provide a gathering place for such contact, offering more opportunities to practice what we might call collaborative theology.

In furthering this collaboration, the Tutu Center will provide points of contact with people in fields such as business, social service, or economic planning, allowing us to come together to reflect on how action and faith can intersect.  We anticipate that adult education will be a strong focus for our new center.  Given our metropolitan location, we anticipate a major focus on urban ministry.  We will strengthen and expand our current programs in Christian Spirituality and in Jewish-Christian studies.  And we look forward to working with other national and international organizations--including the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre in Cape Town--with which we share a concern for social justice, reconciliation, and innovative models for conflict resolution.

In terms of our mission, the Tutu Center at GTS is in no way a new departure.  It is a way for us to do what we do better, with an expanded circle of partners.

Q: How do you intend to manifest this increased sense of engagement and collaboration?

WBE: One difference will be immediately visible.  We are literally opening up a side of our campus that has always been closed off.

For the past century, the gateway to our quadrangle and the Chapel of the Good Shepherd has been on the Ninth Avenue side of our campus.  The Tenth Avenue side has been a stone wall, topped by a chain-link fence.  That was understandable back when the Hudson River piers stood right across the street, or even later, when a rail line ran down the middle of Tenth Avenue.  It makes no sense today, when the neighborhood to our west has changed so dramatically, from Chelsea’s art gallery area down to the Meatpacking District.  As we reach out programmatically, we also want to reach out physically to our changing city, by contributing something open, green, and welcoming to the streetscape on Tenth Avenue.

So most of the wall will come down.  A new garden will go in, along with a new entrance--the first we’ve ever had on Tenth Avenue.  Even if you’re just passing by, you should be able to see through to the central quadrangle of our campus, the Close, and get a feeling for the beauty, serenity, and tradition of the Seminary.

If you accept the invitation to enter and take part in one of the Tutu Center’s programs, then of course you will experience much more.

Q: When not occupied by the Seminary’s programs, the Tutu Center will be available for use by other not-for-profit organizations, for a fee.  How frequent will such uses be, and how much will the revenues from them contribute to the Seminary?

WBE: It’s very difficult to project the demand for a Center that has not yet been built--but we know that New York is the most space-starved city in the country, and that it has no conference facilities comparable to those we are building, with modern guest rooms, fully wired meeting rooms, and a magnificent 19th-century refectory.  We are reasonably confident that we will be able to set aside about one-third of the calendar year for use of the facility by other not-for-profit groups.

We estimate that during its first five years in operation, the Tutu Center will get more than half of its revenues from outside sources.  These fee-paying events should eventually generate enough money to support the operation of the Tutu Center and to pay for the preservation and renovation of the Tenth Avenue buildings.  At the same time, our rental policy will allow us to help any number of worthy organizations that have wanted a suitable meeting place in Manhattan but until now could not find one.  So we increase the Seminary’s community involvement while making the Tutu Center self-supporting.

Q: Will the rental income from the Tutu Center also contribute to the Seminary’s operating budget?

WBE: We do expect increased revenues for the two existing programs that will be housed in the Tutu Center.  What’s perhaps more important, though, is that the Tutu Center will help us reduce our costs and make us better stewards of our property.

Although the Seminary’s buildings are our greatest asset, they have also been our greatest liability.  In recent years, we have been spending nearly 30 percent of our annual budget on deferred maintenance.  Obviously, this has diminished our ability to sustain the core experience of General, our residential Master of Divinity program, which prepares its students to be ordained as clergy.  By creating the Tutu Center, we will be able to reduce our maintenance costs by some $250,000 a year, almost from the first day.

We will also be able to make more effective programmatic use of our campus.  The Church has a growing need for quality lay education programs, to address the increased importance of lay leadership in congregations.  It also needs ongoing education for clergy, who find that three short years in the Seminary cannot possibly prepare them for the lifelong challenges of ordained ministry.  As our experience with the Center for Christian Spirituality has shown us, there are many people, laity and clergy alike, who wish to renew themselves through short courses and intensive study, or are seeking ways to deepen their pursuit of the values shared by most faith traditions: peace, justice, and charity toward others.  We can be better stewards of our property if we dedicate a portion of the campus to such programs.

Q: Hasn’t the Seminary already completed renovation work on several of its other buildings?

WBE: Yes. Since 1999, we have invested $9 million in renovation efforts.  One of these projects, which involved replacing the slate roof of Hoffman Hall and replicating the original copper cupola, won the Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award of the New York Landmarks Conservancy.

Q: Do other large building projects remain to be done?

WBE: We’ve made remarkable progress with the care of our historic buildings.  But we do face a big task with a more recent structure, Sherrill Hall, which since the 1960s has been our Ninth Avenue frontage.
 
I doubt many people are fond of Sherrill Hall as architecture. I know that no one can defend the quality of its construction.  Unfortunately, the building was poorly made.  The elevator now needs to be replaced; the HVAC system needs to be replaced; the roof urgently needs to be replaced.  In fact, our engineering consultants tell us that we can continue to occupy Sherrill Hall through perhaps 2008 at the latest.  After that, the building simply will have to come down, and we will need a new entrance building for the campus, to house our administration offices, the St. Mark’s Library, and other functions.

We are trying to treat this necessity as an opportunity.  We are now working to develop a solution that will be both as cost-effective as the creation of the Tutu Center and as positive in its physical impact on the neighborhood.

Q: So by 2017, when the Seminary marks its bicentennial, you hope to have restored the historic fabric of the Chelsea Square campus, eliminated ongoing financial burdens, reaffirmed and expanded your program, and repositioned GTS in relationship to the city and a diverse public.  What is motivating such an ambitious agenda?

WBE: I think the scope of our work is modest compared with the achievements of a century ago, when Dean Eugene Augustus Hoffman built the campus you see today.  Still, it’s an important question.  To carry out our initiatives, we must ask for the cooperation of our immediate Seminary community, our Church, our neighborhood, our city.  People need to know what’s at the heart of these projects.

The Seminary is reflecting a broader effort within the Episcopal Church.  We are all striving to provide a gathering place where people can learn together and come to grips with today’s important issues, spiritual, theological, and ethical.  In this century, the task of theological reflection and religious practice will be carried forward through this collaboration of the academy with the congregation, of the business and political worlds with programs of spirituality and reflection, and of the multifaith, multicultural community with the tradition of our faith.

Where should this take place, if not at General?  Over the years, the Seminary has nurtured distinguished teaching and scholarship and has sent out generations of leaders for the Church--not only the two hundred graduates who went on to become bishops and the four who served as Presiding Bishops, but also the many parish clergy and lay leaders who have made an immeasurably positive impact on their local communities.

That’s the tradition to which we are responsible as present-day stewards of The General Theological Seminary.  We need to keep that tradition intact--alive, fresh, and responsive.  We need to make it accessible as widely as possible to people today, and transmit it to those who will follow.

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