At its May 19, 2023, meeting, the BOD resolved to submit a late overture in response to the assignment given to it by the 2019 convention. Following the 2019 convention, a committee was formed to carry out the assignment given to the BOD under Res. 7-03. This committee met monthly for 14 months and submitted to the BOD a proposed overture to modify the governance structure of the CUS and the Synod’s universities according to the directive given under Res. 7-03.
At its February 2021 meeting, the BOD accepted this proposed overture and submitted it to the Synod for comment, as provided under Res. 7-03. This comment period took place between March and September 2021. The 7-03 committee considered this input, made changes to the proposed overture, and submitted a revised proposed overture to the BOD in October 2022. This essentially completed the work of the 7-03 committee; however, before the BOD’s November 2022 meeting, the CUS presidents requested the BOD to consider further modifications to the draft overture, resulting in the BOD postponing action on the final proposed draft overture.
Before the October 2022 revised overture was considered by the BOD, the university presidents discussed a possible alternative approach to address the directive under Res. 7-03. LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison encouraged the presidents to pursue their alternative approach and to request the BOD to delay action on the revised proposed overture to give the presidents the opportunity to present an alternative approach. The BOD agreed. The presidents submitted their own revised proposed overture for the Board to consider at its February 2023 meeting. The Board considered this submission and encouraged further discussion. Also in February, a presentation was provided to the LCMS Council of Presidents by 7-03 Committee Chairman Christian Preus and Concordia University, St. Paul, St. Paul, Minn., President Rev. Dr. Brian Friedrich, who was representing the CUS presidents. This presentation explained the two approaches being considered and their fundamental differences.
Extensive discussions then occurred between representatives of the BOD, the university presidents, the CUS and LCMS Secretary Rev. Dr. John W. Sias. These discussions focused initially on two primary issues: first, the fundamental difference between categorizing the Concordia universities as “agencies,” as provided in current bylaws, or “affiliates,” as proposed in the 7-03 committee revised draft overture (Convention Workbook, R61, pp. 137-59); second, retaining the CUS but focusing its work on right-hand kingdom matters and changing the proposed “accreditation” process to an “ecclesiastical visitation” process. These discussions resulted in the late draft overture, which retains agency status for the universities and establishes a visitation process to be conducted by CUS. This late draft overture, while retaining a substantial portion of the 7-03 committee proposed overture, also makes other detail changes in conformance with these two fundamental differences from the 7-03 committee proposed overture. This includes changes necessary to address financial and governance issues that have evolved over the past several decades.