Shuttering Episcopal Divinity School Burning Cash Trustees from Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) released a letter today that reveals staggering financial losses at the troubled progressive seminary. According to Board of Trustees Chair Gary Hall and Vice-Chair Canon Bonnie Anderson, the October 27-29 trustees meeting on the seminary’s Cambridge, Massachusetts campus “accepted the 2016 audit report which contained the sobering news that EDS’s net assets decreased by $7.9 million (11%) in the last fiscal year.” The deficit is nearly a third larger than EDS Board Treasurer Dennis Stark revealed in July, an amount that was already 30 percent “above a reasonable amount” according to the official. This follows a decrease of nearly $6.5 million (8.5%) in 2015. “As the fiduciary stewards of EDS’s assets and mission, we are obviously dismayed at the size of EDS’s losses, but the news has redoubled our commitment to finding a more sustainable and prudent future for the seminary by the end of fiscal year 2017,” Hall and Anderson wrote. One of ten seminaries educating students for ministry in the Episcopal Church, EDS announced in July that it will cease granting degrees at the conclusion of the current academic year, citing “unsustainable” levels of spending. At the same time, the school’s dean tendered his resignation. At the time, EDS was thought to have the second-largest financial reserves among Episcopal seminaries. According to the school, EDS’s investments were valued at approximately $53 million plus the real estate value of its campus, which is adjacent to Harvard University. More than half of the endowment is restricted. The seminary, already among the smallest members of the Association of Theological Schools, disclosed today that it will only have 23 students remaining after the last degree-granted class is graduated in 2016. Click here for the rest of the article: https://juicyecumenism.com/2016/11/14/shuttering-episcopal-divinity-school-burning-cash/