Thank you for your engagement about matters at the heart of the public witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, which calls us to a just and reconciling world. Luther Seminary has a deep commitment to the work of creating beloved community, an expression of which is articulated in our welcome statement, unanimously adopted by the student council, faculty, and board last year.

At the same time, we acknowledge that we are sinners in a broken world and community, and that there is much to be done as we seek to live into the aspirations in the welcome statement. Thank you for naming some of the particularities of your own experience of this shared brokenness. We recognize that it is only by the power and promise of God’s redeeming love that we can become a community of reconciliation across differences of all kinds.

We look forward to following up with the student community about the specific requests laid out in your letter, in collaboration with our dean of students, campus pastor, faculty, board, and other key staff members. This is work we all share in together, and we are grateful for the initiative you’ve taken to engage in it.

In the meantime, we’d like to point our community to some resources and initiatives that are currently in place. 

• Welcome statement
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee
• Campus care team
• Luther Seminary’s rolling three-year strategic plan (which includes as its first objective, “Build a gospel-centered culture of inclusion among board, faculty, staff, and students”)

Additionally, please don’t miss these upcoming opportunities to engage in further dialogue around anti-racism:

• An Evening with Drew Hart (January 14 at 4:30 pm)
• MLK breakfast (January 20 at 7:00 am)

There is much still to do–and we look forward to additional student engagement in this important work.

Peace,

Leon A. Rodrigues, Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Robin J. Steinke, President
Luther Seminary

Dear Luther Community, I’m writing with an update on the diversity and inclusion work we’re undertaking at Luther Seminary. Open communication is a crucial part of any institutional change effort, and we are committed to providing frequent updates to ensure everyone is caught up on what is happening and to hold ourselves accountable to each other.

To that end, here are the most recent action steps:

1. Over the past two weeks, the student council and I have held three listening sessions–both in person and online–for students to share stories and experiences. It has been a sacred honor to hear everything that was so courageously shared. Thank you to all who participated.
   
   
2. The student council president and vice president, Tom Gehring and Tim Schroeder, presented a summary of the listening sessions to the faculty at their meeting last week.
   
   
3. A group of students from Luther Seminary composed a powerful letter confessing the presence of racism at Luther and calling our institution to shine a light on it and repent. This letter was sent to the faculty and staff of the seminary, and a version was presented to the board in their February meeting.
   
   
4. During their February meeting, the board’s first plenary session was dedicated to addressing issues of inclusion and diversity at Luther. The board expressed its intention to pursue training on diversity and inclusion.

Action steps that are currently in process include:

1. Ongoing, mandatory trainings for all faculty and staff, including day-long retreats, face-to-face workshops, and online trainings. The first full-day, off-campus training for faculty and staff will take place in April. Human Resources Director Arnita Walls is working to secure others.
   
   
2. A new section of the website is being created to highlight all the work that is being done to address inclusion and diversity at Luther. This micro-site will be accessible to the entire community and interested stakeholders and will include updates, reports, resources, initiatives, and reflections. This will be going live in March; watch for an update soon.
   
   
3. A committee has been assembled to draft a welcome statement that is grounded in Luther Seminary’s commitment to being welcoming and hospitable to persons of all backgrounds, ethnicities, countries of origin, races, sexual orientations, gender identities, theological commitments, and political perspectives. In an increasingly polarized world, the gospel calls us to hold space for one another, and this commitment will be a key driver of our work moving forward.
   

Institutional transformation is difficult work. It requires sustained attention over time, with efforts on multiple levels at once, including structural, curricular, and cultural. And it is deep work. It isn’t about mere political correctness or putting bandaids over the wounds in our community in the hopes that everything will go away. It’s about the call of Jesus to be transformed in our bodies and souls–to confess and repent and emerge from darkness into light by the grace of God.

I invite the entire Luther community to journey with us, to provide counsel and wisdom and to engage deeply in these efforts. Additional updates will be provided on a regular basis. Thank you to all who are already showing up and supporting our call to reflect the love of Christ.

Grace and peace,

Robin Steinke, President
Luther Seminary

The following letter was sent on February 12, 2018 from student groups Dismantling Racism: Beloved Community and ReCharge at Luther Seminary in response to the listening sessions held by President Steinke and the student council. It was read by Student Council President Tom Gehring at the first listening session as an explanation for why many students (particularly students of non-white color) were not present.

A majority of the minoritized/marginalized students will not be attending this meeting. It was brought to our attention that President Steinke might interpret our absence as if we do not care. To that we would like to respond by saying: We have been creating safe spaces, table conversations and talking circles for the last 2 years addressing the problems that we all have been experiencing. During these 2 years President Steinke nor any of her representatives have attended any of our meetings. The staff/faculty members that have showed up are the same staff/faculty members that are still showing up and helping to create the space and conversation along side us.

During these two years we have come to the conclusion that President Steinke does not care about our experience in this institution. Within the last year racism has elevated to an all-time high, the passive-aggressive racism within the faculty, staff & students have become way too familiar. From our perspective, their injustices go unanswered and unpunished while any black/African American staff that gets hired lasts less than 6 months because of their failure to “do their job”. Talking has been the theme since we began attending in this institution. It has been occurring for decades before we got here. We talk & talk until we graduate and move on and nothing really gets fixed. We decided not to attend this meeting because we are tired of listening to empty promises, words without meaning and with no intent of action.

We do not want to talk if it will not be followed by action. We do not want to hear you say or promise change, we want you to show it & prove it; We are visual learners. In the meantime, we will continue to pray for God’s presence in this institution; That the spirit’s grace turns hateful hearts into loving ones, and that our creator provides courage to the ones in positions to make Luther Seminary a proper representation of Christ’s love knowing that our redeemer forgives those who trespasses against us. We will pray for God to give us the strength to persevere as the oppressed, as the chosen ones and as children of God. May Justice prevail.

Sincerely,

ReCharge & DR:BC

In February 2018, student allies read a letter at the meeting of the Board of Trustees addressing the presence of institutional racism at Luther Seminary. They also sent this letter to faculty, staff, and emeriti faculty members.

On the morning of January 9, Luther Seminary President Robin Steinke sent a video message to students, faculty, and staff responding to an incident of racial discrimination on campus. The event involved a figurine of a monkey that was placed in the Christmas stocking that hung next to Dean Angela Shannon’s office door, which was discovered after Dean Shannon returned to campus following the Christmas holiday. President Steinke said that the incident was difficult to speak and hear about, but that it needed to be addressed as a nearly universal symbol of racial harassment and intimidation.

“We must shine a light on what is wrong in order for there to be healing,” she said.

In her comments, President Steinke made clear that harassment and intimidation are unacceptable in any organization, but especially at Luther Seminary, where students are preparing to be public theologians and mission leaders for the sake of bearing faithful witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“We are all made in God’s image,” she said. “Anything that seeks to deny or denigrate or diminish the image of God in others is antithetical to the gospel.”

President Steinke also clearly articulated that Luther Seminary stands behind its policies against harassment, discrimination, and hostility, and is committed to upholding a climate of mutual respect and responsibility in order to provide an environment conducive to learning and living in all facets of its communal life.

The video was accompanied by a list of resources for pastoral care and counseling; information regarding the methods for reporting harassment or discrimination; a schedule of community care events for reflection, processing, and healing; and actions the seminary was undertaking to improve policies that build a safe and welcoming environment for all of its people.

Finally, President Steinke called on the campus community to come forward with any information about the incident so that it could be addressed directly. That same morning, the student who had placed the figurine in Dean Shannon’s stocking came forward to self-report. Coming from another culture, the student was unaware of the full implications the figurine would carry in this context. 

Given this update, President Steinke sent a follow-up email to the campus community, in which she shared the following thoughts and reiterated that this remains a defining moment for Luther Seminary in its commitment to welcome and reconciliation. The following text is from President Steinke’s January 9 campus email:

In reflecting on this event, I want to express my gratitude for how this community has responded. I am grateful for the student who had the courage and integrity to step forward. I am grateful for the open-heartedness of both Dean Shannon and the student to engage in a difficult conversation directly. I am grateful for the way faculty, staff, the pastor’s office, student groups, and the student council stepped up with support and solidarity. Most of all, I am grateful for the way our community has come alongside one another in a difficult moment, and to make sure we understand the story as correctly and fully as possible.

But I want to reiterate: our work is not done. If anything, this incident has further revealed the many layers of work we have to do. Our call to engage in the difficult, soul-stretching work of cross-cultural competence, anti-racism, and relating across difference is perhaps more urgent than ever.

• The community will still gather for worship and prayer multiple times over the next week or so.
  
• We will still have professionally-facilitated talking circles on Thursday and throughout the semester to process this and other situations of racial and cultural tension.
  
• Dean Shannon and HR director Arnita Walls will continue to expedite recommendations for training sessions, community conversations, and policy updates.
  

Among the greatest gifts and challenges of being church together is our diversity. Our community cuts across cultural, linguistic, ethnic, generational, racial, and denominational divides. We have beloved community members with different nationalities, sexual orientations, gender identities, political perspectives, cultural backgrounds, and theological commitments. This diversity brings a richness and vitality to our community—but engaging differences is difficult. We misunderstand one another. We disagree. We get defensive.

Somehow, paradoxically, the call of the gospel is to be unified despite our differences. This isn’t easy. We will struggle and make mistakes. But to see and hear and love one another through it all is the promise and potential of Luther Seminary—and, indeed, the entire Body of Christ.

I said in my initial message this morning that this is a defining moment for our institution. It still is. Let’s take this moment to lean into the work of reconciliation and healing. Let’s be present at community events over the next week, where we can pray together, talk together, be together, and engage in practices of grace, listening, and love.

I leave you with the same message I expressed in my initial video: the road to reconciliation is a long journey to which our entire community has now been summoned.

May the Holy Spirit accompany us along the way.

Grace and peace to you,