April 2006
Making
education more accessible to those who need it most has long been a driving
desire of Steve Kemp. In January 2006, he became President
of ACCESS, the professional association of Christian distance and accessible education.
He added this position to his responsibilities with BILD, as a way to provide significant
leadership in the most innovative sector of theological education.
The history
of ACCESS is characterized by an emphasis on distance education (first
correspondence courses, then computers and online), but its future is not
defined by particular delivery systems. ACCESS began in 1970 at a celebration
of the 75th anniversary of the Correspondence School of Moody Bible
Institute. It was initially called the Christian Correspondence School
Association, then the Association of Christian Continuing Education Schools and
Seminaries, and now simply ACCESS. Being true to its name, ACCESS is now
characterized by an emphasis on all forms of education that emphasize
accessibility (as opposed to the inaccessibility of a traditional campus for
non-traditional learners). Kemp's first order of business as ACCESS President
is to strengthen the organization's commitment to accessible education,
particularly nonformal church-based theological education and competency-based
academic credentialing.
Kemp recently
directed the ACCESS annual conference, held January 25–28, 2006, in San Diego.
The conference theme was "Tipping Points: Leveraging Accessible Education for
Maximum Impact." Distance and accessible forms of education, especially nonformal
ones such as BILD's partnerships in India, have the potential to reach "tipping points" of maximum impact,
whereby whole countries are served at a fraction of the cost of traditional
campus-based formal education.
The conference
theme was emphasized poignantly through an excursion to Tecate, Mexico, for a banquet. Participants went across the border 90
minutes southwest of San
Diego and traveled through
"Third World" neighborhoods to a very special
restaurant. Plaza Santa
Monica is actually
the dining hall for Formula Plastics, a plastic injection molding factory.
However, the owner wanted his dining hall to be "nice enough for him," so it
also functions as a fine dining restaurant for the community. The banquet
program included music by a local pastor (in Spanish), interviews with
struggling theological educators and aspiring theological education students
from Tecate, a view of the U.S. from a few miles away on a hill, and a
challenge to consider how institutions could fulfill their missions on 1% of
their current budgets.
Major
presentations and workshops during the conference included:
Jay Klagge, Vice-President of Institutional Research and Effectiveness, University of Phoenix.
·
Research at
the University of Phoenix: What Does Phoenix Measure, Why, and What Have You
Found?
·
Tipping
Points in Higher Education: What Should Christian Distance Education
Institutions Learn from the University of Phoenix?
David Phillips, Vice-President of Online Education, Nazarene Bible College.
·
Building Your
Own Platform for Online Education: Benefit from a Colleague's Success and
Experience
Russell West, Associate Professor of International Leadership Education,
Asbury Theological Seminary
·
Tipping
Points in Global Theological Education: Needs, Models, and Next Steps.
[with many lessons learned from his study
of BILD partners]
·
Mentoring in
Distance and Accessible Forms of Education
Michael Lambert, Executive Director, Distance Education & Training
Council
·
The Tipping
Points in Distance Education Today: What is Working and What Awaits Us?
Stephen Kemp, Director of Institutional Partnerships, BILD
International
·
Instructional
Design and Spiritual Formation: Building an Effective Course from Scratch [maximize God-given learning
communities, such as church and family, in the real-life primary social
relationships of students]
Kemp sees
his role in ACCESS as an opportunity to serve the field of Christian distance
and accessible education in many ways through the doors it opens. He has
already served on the Standards Review Committee for the Association of
Biblical Higher Education (ABHE), the accrediting association for Bible
colleges, helping to write the new rules by which ABHE institutions are granted
accreditation. Now, he is drafting a document for ABHE that provides
benchmarks of quality and models of excellence in alternative academic patterns.
Kemp hopes to lead ACCESS into a wide range of partnerships, both to expand the
perspective of ACCESS members and to influence other organizations regarding
accessible education. For instance, he hopes to have a leading role in a
future consultation on church/seminary relations.
Perhaps the
most significant recent innovation in higher education is the emergence of
Western Governors University, a competency-based academic institution, which
makes extensive use of various types of assessment to make admission decisions,
to advise students in learning activities (including enrollment in online
courses of public institutions in 17 Western states), and to grant academic
credentials on the basis of competencies, not credits. Kemp is currently exploring
what it would take to develop a competency-based academic institution for
ministry training.
When
academic institutions take outcomes assessment seriously, they recognize that
they are in both the training and credentialing businesses. Once training and
credentialing are seen as separate entities, it becomes possible for an
academic institution to grant academic credentials for someone it hasn't
trained. This opens the door for all sorts of education that are valued, based
on their effectiveness, not their formality. And there is no more accessible
form of ministry training than church-based theological education.
Postscript:
On a more
personal note, Kemp has been involved with ACCESS since 1989, when he was a
graduate school intern with a former president of the organization. He has led
many of their conferences and served on its executive committee, most recently
in 2000 and as vice-president in 2005. A turning point in Kemp's ministry came
during the 2001 conference that he hosted on the campus of Moody Bible
Institute. Jeff Reed was invited to present on the topic
"Ministry Training That is Truly Church-Based." Lots of institutions were
doing things in the name of church-based, but BILD was known for only working
with churches. Jeff essentially said that what most institutions were doing
was not truly church-based theological education, but church-housed
theological education that was truly school-based.
Another
turning point came the night before Kemp presented. Joe Stowell, then
President of Moody Bible Institute, spoke at the conference banquet from John
21 ("Peter, do you love Me more than these?"). He acknowledged that ACCESS
members were extremely devoted to their distance education programs but
challenged them to assess whether they really loved Jesus more than their
distance education programs. As a result, Kemp found his spiritual life taken
to a new depth through an emphasis on expression of love for Christ.
Walking
more closely with Christ and coming to a more accurate understanding of the
role of the local church in leadership development prepared Kemp for the
opportunities to come. In 2002, God led him to leave Moody and join the BILD
team. He began serving part-time in November 2002 and moved to Ames to serve full-time in September 2003.
