Land Sale Will Further the Mission of NBTS
May 1, 2013
Our Board of Trustees voted on Monday, May 20, 2013 to sell slightly more than half our property to ew Brunswick Development Corporation known as DEVCO. The Seminary retains almost half of its property in order to build a new campus that is technologically smart and environmentally green. Read our press release and the Litany of Thanksgiving and Hope delivered by our faculty.
May 21, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Land Sale and Renovated Campus for New Brunswick Theological Seminary
(New Brunswick, NJ) – New Brunswick Theological Seminary (NBTS) is pleased to announce that its Board of Trustees voted on Monday, May 20, 2013 to sell slightly more than half its property. The purchaser is New Brunswick Development Corporation known as DEVCO. The Seminary retains almost half of its property in order to build a new campus that is technologically smart and environmentally green.
Sale of this land enables NBTS to recommit to the City of New Brunswick, which weve called home since 1810, said President Dr. Gregg Mast. This city is ideal for our focus on urban ministry, and as a transportation hub enables students from around the New York metropolitan area to attend seminary full or part-time. A satellite campus will continue to be located in Jamaica, Queens on the campus of St. Johns University.
The new, beautifully landscaped campus will be located on the corner of Seminary Place and College Avenue. It will include construction of a redesigned central building with a chapel, classrooms, offices, conference facilities and space for commuting students as well as a 100-car parking lot. The new campus will preserve the Gardener A. Sage Library, an exquisitely appointed Victorian bookhall built in the style of a fourth century cathedral and dedicated in 1875.
DEVCO will develop its portion of the land to construct the first major classroom building in the last five decades on the College Avenue campus of Rutgers University. NBTS anticipates its new seminary building and campus will be ready for the fall semester of 2014. NBTS is planning a public groundbreaking ceremony for mid-summer.
New Brunswick Theological Seminary is the first seminary in North America, founded in 1784. A teaching institution of the Reformed Church in America who will retain offices in the new building, the Seminary provides theological education to students from more than 20 denominations and a variety of ethnic backgrounds. On May 19, 2013, NBTS granted degrees to 45 graduate students in programs of Master of Arts, Master of Divinity, and Doctor of Ministry in Metro-Urban Ministry. For lay leaders we offer a Certificate in Theological Studies program in English and Spanish. Full- and part-time students have the convenience of daytime, evening and weekend classes on our two campuses, the main campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and our New York campus at St. Johns University in Jamaica, Queens. Our student body is more than fifty percent female, more than fifty percent people of color and one out of every five of our students were born outside of the United States.
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Today, after recovering from an exciting graduation weekend, NBTS faculty members gathered for their Annual Faculty Retreat. ”This year our retreat has a special focus”, explained President Mast. ”As always, we are reviewing the past year, but today we are working on the new curriculum we will launch in the fall of 2014″. The perfect time, as we announce the sale of our land for the purpose of our new campus, for the faculty to gather by the buildings scheduled for demolition, to give thanks for the people and the miracles they have housed and launched, and pray with hearts full of hope for our future.
People: And our Hope for years to come.
L: We give you special thanks O God for these homes that have served the seminary. For the Presidents House that has hosted presidents and professors, students and staff.
P: We give you thanks for the warm hospitality of this home, and for the dreams and visions that have come from those who lived here.
L: For the Mission House that has hosted so many missionaries on furlough over the years as well as faculty and staff.
P: We give you thanks for those who have found rest for their bodies and souls in this house, and for those who have read and learned and imagined in its rooms, both here and in its first location on George Street.
L: For these duplexes that have housed professors and staff and students over the years.
P: We give you thanks for those who have come from these doors to teach and learn in our classrooms and those who have studied the lessons and life of our Lord so we may walk in his way.
L: For Beardslee House that has housed so many families over the years, particularly the Beardslee family as it gave to the Reformed Church in America over a century of faithful service.
P: We give you thanks for those who lived in this house, served in your church, and taught in our seminary, and in these later years, for our Jewish brothers and sisters who have studied, communed and worshipped in these walls.
L: O God, our Help in ages past;
P: And our Hope for years to come.
L: O God, our Help in ages past;
P: And our Hope for years to come.
L: For Scudder Hall, in which for almost fifty years students and families have lived and worked, studied and struggled, gave birth to children and to futures filled with hope.
P: We give you thanks for those who have lived and studied here, for those whose vocations were formed, whose minds were stretched, and whose spirits were inspired within these walls.
L: For One and Three Seminary Place, homes of professors and their families, homes of students and visitors, homes of offices and those who work at our neighbor Rutgers University.
P: We give you thanks for those who lived and worked and ate and slept in these houses- for those who have served the seminary we love and those who called these houses, home, during their years among us.
L: As we give thanks for the past we imagine a new use for this sacred land;
P: We imagine a new seminary building and a new campus.
L: We imagine new teachers and learners, new guests and gracious hospitality;
P: We imagine our mission being shared through word and technology, through gestures of hope and faithful actions of compassion and justice.
L: O God, our Help in ages past and our Hope for years to come,
P: Hear as we pray together the prayer of your Son:
Our Father who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation
And deliver us from evil
For thine is the kimgdom, the power and the glory
For ever and ever
Amen.