Date: June 9, 2025
The research and literature on not-for-profit governance offers good advice on organization and procedure. Regulatory and statutory compliance is stressed. The advice cannot suggest outcomes, and making decisions is the duty of governing boards, but case studies that pose conflicts of interest and common dilemmas are useful preparation.
Good governance requires not just oversight, but strategic and generative thinking as well. Strategic thinking is planning and executing plans to protect and advance a mission. Generative thinking requires looking beyond current and immediately foreseeable circumstances to imagine what change might be required to ensure the future strength and effective pursuit of that mission.
Good governance also rests on excellent shared leadership with a professional leader. What is described above happens easily and smoothly with the right leader. An institution’s path is likely to be bumpy and unproductive without an outstanding professional leader who can share leadership comfortably with a volunteer board of trustees. Virginia, and now General Seminary has been blessed with such an extraordinary leader since 2007.
For theological schools and seminaries, guidance for trustees and professional leaders is as close as scripture. The much loved and often quoted excerpt from Micah 6:8 is a good example. As trustees of Virginia and General Seminaries, my colleagues and I will do well to remind ourselves of the answer to the question about what the Lord requires of us. As we do our work, the admonition to “do justice, and love kindness and to walk humbly with your God” should guide us.
Our Dean and President has led, and those who have served on our seminary boards have governed, through a season of challenges, changes, and opportunities. I hope, viewed by those who follow us, that our actions will meet the standard found in Micah.
Dr. David H. Charlton
Chair of the Board of Trustees
Virginia Theological Seminary & The General Theological Seminary