(RNS) — For much of the past decade, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Once the nation’s largest seminary, and one of six Southern Baptist seminaries, the school has been a center of controversy since the 2018 firing of its former president, Paige Patterson, for mishandling a claim of sexual abuse by a female student at a previous job. Since then, the school has ousted a second president, who then sued the school, admitted to overspending its budget by $140 million, fought in court with ex-employees over a foundation that supported the school, dealt with a Department of Justice investigation, and experienced internal board conflict over declining enrollment and fiscal crisis.
By the time David Dockery, a soft-spoken but well-respected Baptist leader, was named the school’s interim president in the fall of 2022, the school was out of cash. “In September of 2022 we had $4.2 million of short-term debt with the credit line maxed out, and wondering if we were going to be able to navigate our way even through that particular academic year,” Dockery told RNS in a recent interview.
Today, the school is in a place of “genuine stability,” according to Dockery, 72, who dropped the interim from his title in 2023. Enrollment is up, the school has paid off its short-term debt and has $10 million in cash on hand. More importantly, perhaps, the trustees and school administration are on the same page. “The spirit on campus is positive, and people are encouraged about the direction of the seminary,” Dockery said.
“I’m not surprised at all that Southwestern has stabilized under him,” said Barry Hankins, a Baylor University historian. “He just has a track record of being able to do that.”
Before coming to Southwestern, Dockery was president of Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School outside Chicago. And besides a reputation as a solid scholar, according to Hankins, he had a history of effective leadership, including dealing with crisis.
David Dockery is president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo courtesy SWBTS)
In 2008, a devastating tornado hit Union, causing $40 million in damage, destroying most of the dorms and leaving much of the campus covered in rubble. Dockery helped rally the campus, got students back in classes within a few weeks and started to rebuild.
During the recovery, Dockery said he learned some essential lessons, such as the importance of community prayer, clear communication and working together. Union also committed itself to what Dockery called an “essential mindset” — focusing on its most important tasks.
“Our response was a team effort, led by a group of seasoned administrators who were all deeply committed to Union, who knew and trusted each other, and almost all of whom had worked together at Union for at least ten years,” he said in an email. “We understood each other’s strengths and weaknesses and worked harmoniously and seamlessly together.”
It also helped that there was no one to blame for causing the crisis — which was not the case when Dockery took over at Southwestern. Most of the senior leaders were new to their roles. Trust was hard to come by, and there was little unity on campus. That has made rebuilding harder.
“Not everyone was cheering for us because there was confusion both on campus, among the board, and among constituents as to what had happened and why it had taken place,” he said.
Early on, Dockery set out to address the campus culture. He and other leaders organized weekly prayer meetings and set out core values, designed to help create what he called a “grace filled” work culture. Dockery also borrowed from his time at Union in getting people to work together on the essentials.
He said that the weekly prayer meetings have helped build trust — as did holding open meetings with faculty and staff each semester to share information and answer questions.
“We asked everyone across the campus to set aside personal agendas, to cease working in silos and to work together as collaboratively as possible for the overall good of the institution,” he said.
Ed Stetzer, dean of Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, called the turnaround at Southwestern “remarkable.”
“Southwestern was once the largest seminary in the world, but just a few years ago people were unsure it would make it,” said Stetzer. “David Dockery has consistently had the confidence of Southern Baptists, and he’s used his influenced to bring Southwestern back from the brink and into the future.”
Along with addressing the culture at Southwestern, Dockery also helped put in place a new policy manual for the board, which included more oversight of the school’s finances by the school’s board of trustees, something that had been lacking in the past.
The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary campus in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Chinsop Chong/SWBTS)
In 2023, the trustees issued a report detailing two decades of fiscal mismanagement, including the $140 million operating deficit. According to the report, Southwestern ran an average deficit of $6.67 million each year from 2002 to 2023. That mismanagement resulted in sanctions from its accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
The new manual puts more controls in place, said Dockery, who credited board member John Rayburn for leading that process. In 2022, the school finished $9 million in the red, said Dockery. This year, the school will break even and is awaiting word of whether the sanctions from its accreditor will be lifted.
Fixing the school’s finances also meant selling off some of the seminary’s property. In 2023, the school sold a 20-acre property for about $14 million, which helped eliminate its debt.
Southwestern retains considerable assets, including a $160 million endowment and more than 150 acres of property. The challenge now, Dockery said, is to use those assets well.
The school currently has a head count of 650 in its master of divinity program. (Counting part-time and full-time students, they add up to 346 full-time slots, according to data from the Association of Theological Schools.) The school’s largest program is a master’s program with 1,018 students, with a full-time equivalent of 420, whereas its doctor of ministry program has 308 students and an FTE of 92. The school had its largest graduation since 2002, with 415 students this May. Southwestern also announced that it had revised its M. Div. program so that it can be completed in less time.
Now that the school is stable, the next task is to make sure the school has a plan for a sustainable and healthy future.
“We have ongoing work to do to be in a place of what I would say is institutional health and flourishing, and so we’re working toward those ends,” he said.
