Are you the administrator of an ELCA or an ELCA affiliated junior or senior high school ? Do you wonder what others across the country are doing? Do you wonder what we all could do to build more schools and strengthen the ones we have? Do you have a story to tell? Do you have concerns you would like to address to the Office of the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA?

If you answered yes to all of these questions, then you should be in Chicago, Illinois at the Lutheran Center May 16 - 18, 2003. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Division for Higher Education and Schools is bringing together junior and senior high administrators to spend 2 1/2 days telling our stories and brainstorming our ideas and dreams.

Suzanne Gibson Wise, President of Lutheran Family Services of the Carolinas will lead our time together. Before taking her position at Lutheran Family Services, Ms. Wise was the founding CEO of the American Institute for Nonprofit Management in Southwestern Florida, Development Executive with the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, a former National Director for VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), and served seven years on the staff on a House of Representatives committee in Washington DC.

Ms. Wise will lead us in Future Search. This forum will engage the WHOLE SYSTEM. This means there is more diversity and less hierarchy than is usually present in a working meeting. There is a chance for each person to be heard and to learn other ways of looking at the task at hand. Future scenarios are put into HISTORICAL and GLOBAL perspective. This feature encourages shared understanding and a greater commitment to act. Participants SELF-MANAGE their work which means helping others do the tasks and taking responsibility for our perceptions and actions. The forum will also use COMMON GROUND, not “conflict management” as its frame of reference by honoring our differences rather than having to reconcile them.

If you haven’t registered for this forum, please do it today. If you haven’t received your materials, contact the ELCA Division for Higher Education and Schools for more information. (Dbraband@elca.org or 800-638-3522 ext 5074) We hope to see each of you in Chicago in May.

Back to Index