Developing strategies to strengthen the “unity, integrity, and financial viability” of Seventh-day Adventist colleges and universities around the world will be the focus of a new ad hoc commission established by Annual Council on October 1.

According to Dr. Humberto Rasi, education department director for the Adventist Church worldwide, the action was prompted, in part, by the rapid growth in the number of Adventist tertiary institutions over the past decade. Today there are 98 church-run universities and colleges—from India to West Africa to Bolivia—which represents an increase of 46 since 1990.

In presenting the proposal to members of Annual Council, Rasi emphasized the importance of “our institutions of higher education in preparing individuals to fulfil the needs of the church as an organization. We need pastors, teachers, business managers, and health care personnel.” The intent of the commission is “to look, with particular terms of reference, at the whole system of Adventist higher education; at the realities and needs in each of the divisions,” said Rasi. The commission will “look at the larger picture, the global strategy, of higher education.”   

Echoing a theme he introduced in his opening address to Annual Council, Pastor Jan Paulsen, president of the Adventist Church, said that the unprecedented increase in church membership over recent years presented the “need for a variety of structures and institutions that are commensurate to the needs of a growing church.” Paulsen also noted that, in many countries, governments encourage the church to establish tertiary institutions because they recognize that the Adventist Church is “a very competent deliverer of higher education.”

In responding to these circumstances, church leaders should avoid a “free-for-all” that will ultimately strain the financial and educational resources of the church, said Paulson. “The setting up of this commission arises from the fact that we need to be ahead of the issue,” he said. The church’s leaders need to “sit down, and in a careful, deliberate, and prayerful manner, reflect on both the structures that we have set up and whether these are adequate to meet the challenges which are ahead of us.”

Dr. Niels-Erik Andreasen, president of the Michigan-based Andrews University, spoke in favor of establishing the commission, emphasizing the importance of Adventist institutions of higher learning to the mission of the church. “It is true that the proportion of students we enroll is dropping in relation to the growth of our membership,” said Andreasen. “So the impact of [Adventist] education is, in a way, shrinking in our church.

“I hope that what will come out of this report are decisions that will strengthen education,” he added, “to make each school better than it is, to see to it that schools that are not ready wait a little longer to become ready, and that we train teachers before we open schools.” In this way, said Andreasen, the commission will help “build up our education system.”   

There are currently three bodies that oversee the Adventist higher education system; the International Board of Education, the International Board of Ministerial and Theological Education, and the Adventist Accrediting Association (AAA). The first two boards are the “gatekeepers” for the establishment of new degree programs at Adventist institutions, while the AAA is responsible for ensuring that the institutions maintain prescribed standards. The newly formed Commission on Higher Education is charged, in part, with developing a “global plan” that reflects “current and projected needs of the Church in fulfilling its mission.” Recommendations of the commission will be considered at future meetings of Annual Council.