Pacific School of Religion

This fall, William McKinney begins his eleventh year as president of PSR. He recently sat down to share his thoughts about the past decade. Following the interview are comments from some of Bill’s colleagues on his leadership of the seminary.

When you arrived as president, in 1996, the seminary was struggling. What are your thoughts about that period now?

Looking back ten years later, I think I can see that there are elements of the PSR culture that become most evident at times of crisis. Over the past 140 years, there have been a number of crises, but every time this school faced a period of vulnerability, it has asked: “What does it mean to be a theological school in this place and in this time, and what’s demanded of us now?” It has not looked to the theological schools of the East Coast and Midwest, but has said: “What does it mean to be the best theological school we can be in this particular piece of God’s turf?” And I think that’s exactly what happened ten years ago.

What emerged from these questions?

What grew out of those questions was an awareness that some of the key features of PSR life have been things that have put us on the edge. Geographically, of course, we’re on the edge of a great university, of the continental United States, and of the Pacific. But we’re also on the edge of church life as we’ve known it up to now. And what’s more evident to me now than ever before is that the place to be is on that edge.

Of course, one of the challenges of being in Berkeley is to be on the edge without falling over. And that’s where a theological school like ours, with its shared governance between a board of trustees and a faculty, really has an advantage. There’s a sense in which the job of the faculty is to push us as hard as they can to be as close to the edge as we can be; and the job of the board is to keep us from falling over.

The relationship between the faculty and the trustees certainly has improved in the past decade.

Indeed it has. We enjoy a relationship between a board of trustees and a faculty that I’ve not seen anywhere in theological education: a mutual respect, a recognition that while the two bodies have different interests and responsibilities, the level of commitment to the school and to its mission is widely shared.

Most seminaries quake when they realize the board is coming to town. Here, I think it’s just the opposite. Everybody in this community looks forward to the arrival of our colleagues who are board members. And people on the board sense that they are not just fulfilling an obligation but see their service as an opportunity to be stretched — to be informed and also excited about what happens here on the campus.

What role have you played in this changed relationship?

One of the jobs of a leader is to define reality in a way that includes people rather than excludes people. Ten years ago, there were some differences between the board and the faculty on the direction of the school. Those differences were real. But I think there were also some underlying, shared commitments that, because of the particular situation at the time, neither board members nor faculty could see.

One shared commitment was to the renewal and transformation of church life as we know it. There was a deep commitment to scholarship, on the one hand, and to professional ministry, on the other. At times it began to look to some as if there was a battle between academics and spirituality; but I think in reality there was an underlying appreciation that a strong theological school needs an emphasis on both.

What can you point to that helped turn PSR around?

If I were to cite a single event, it was the determination of the younger faculty members at the time to stay at PSR. This was a group of strong, young faculty members, new to the campus, who easily could have gone to other theological schools. They asked themselves: Why should we stay? In a document that became known as the Younger Faculty Statement on the Future of PSR, they articulated their decision. It was a statement that board members and more senior faculty and students and others — including this prospective president — could look at and agree with and say: Yes, this is an effort worth making.

That helped you decide to take the job?

Yes, that’s one of the reasons. I felt there was a base here for one of the strongest faculties in theological education. Another factor was that I saw members of the search committee — trustees, faculty, students, and staff — who loved what this school could be, who were impressive individuals that I was convinced were going to hang in there and help make it happen.

What goals did you have when you came here?

One was to have a mission and a mission statement. I began, from my first day here, to talk about my sense that the church — what we now call the progressive Christian movement, and what we then talked about as liberal or mainline Protestantism — at its best occupied a space that honored its past while exercising a preferential option for the future. So I stressed our commitment to “historic and emerging faith communities.” What I was trying to do was to claim a space that honors what has been and that looks to the future.

I guess I would go so far as to take a theological claim about this. As Christians, we have the benefit of a scriptural record, an historical record, and I’m conservative enough to want us to spend time with that every day, to wrestle with what has been and what that means for our understanding of what’s happening today and what the future looks like. But it’s always, I believe, with a preferential option for the future that God is calling us — not to relive our past but to be pressing toward the beloved community, in Dr. King’s phrase. So the question is how you occupy that space, how you live in that tension, between what has been and what will be or can be. That’s basic to who I am, and I think it’s pretty basic to what PSR has been and wants to be. It’s also a point around which there’s a fairly strong consensus.

So, articulating that, framing the school’s mission in terms of our commitment to serving God by equipping historic and emerging faith communities for ministries of compassion and justice in a changing world, became a pretty foundational step. The mission statement that we adopted was something we could move ahead on together. It narrowed our focus and helped us make some key decisions. I think this was an important first step: to build a consensus around what we’re called to do as a school.

When did this emerge?

It happened pretty quickly because we were coming up on an accreditation visit from the Association of Theological Schools, and if you’re not able to articulate your mission, you’re not able to get accredited. So we had to find a way to say: this is what we’re about as a school. Part of my job was to find words that we could use to do that.

I knew we were on the right track when the student association, CAPSR, decided to do some T-shirts six or seven years ago, and they decided to use a phrase from our mission statement: “Serving God by equipping historic and emerging faith communities.” And I thought: “Hey! Something good has happened if I’m not the only one talking about the mission.”

A second early and important matter was our financial situation. This was a serious issue. We were running deficits of about $1.3 million a year on a $6 million budget, spending more than 10 percent of our endowment resources every year. As the board knew — as everybody knew — that simply was not sustainable. We were penalizing future generations in order to pay the bills.

The chief financial officer at the time, Garfield Byrd, was very helpful to me. The two of us, along with key individuals on the board, decided that the only way to move ahead in reducing the annual deficit was to create an inclusive process that gave all of the communities of PSR a voice — not in whether we were going to cut the deficit, but in how we were going to do it. My commitment was to find a way that we could move into fiscal responsibility without having anyone pay a disproportionate price. We put together a task force made up of board members, faculty, staff, and students who worked for three or four months to examine the patterns in revenue and expenses so we could see what the problems were.

We came up with two questions: Can we increase our revenues, and can we find ways to cut? We came up with a relatively complicated solution of increased revenues through slight but reasonable increases in tuition, housing costs, and auxiliary enterprises. And we projected that we would try to double our annual fund giving.

How successful has that been?

We’ve been successful. For five years in a row, we’ve had an increase of 10 to 15 percent a year in support from alums and friends. We also put a major emphasis on foundations, trying to find ways that different pieces of our program could be supported.

We also looked hard at the way we spend our money. We looked hard every time there was a staff vacancy, to make sure the position needed filling or needed changing. For a short period, we decreased the amount going to financial aid, although I’ll emphasize that we’ve brought that back up to where it was. But there was a sense in which students paid their share, too, in dealing with this matter.

And so, through that combination, over a period of time, we’ve managed to reduce the deficit. We are spending $1,300,000 less per year from our endowment than we were ten years ago. And we’ve done that without any staff cuts and while retaining one of the most generous benefits packages on earth. I’m proud that we’ve been able to do that, and we’ve done it because of the hard work of a diverse group of folks and a board of trustees that’s been hawkish about holding us to our commitment to responsible stewardship of our resources. This is a much more financially healthy institution than it was.

Further, as a result of our Tradition of Boldness capital campaign, we were able to add a healthy portion to our endowment. We now have an endowment of about $46 million, compared to $23 ten years ago.

How would you rate the health of the campus in other ways?

I think there’s a growing sense of confidence that we have the right team of people doing the right work in a way that makes a difference. The fact that we adopted the notion of a “tradition of boldness” reflects a growing sense of confidence that the work we do here is important for the church and for the world.

You sound confident!

I think one of the jobs of the president is to be a cheerleader. I need to look donors in the eye and say: I want you to invest in this work. I’m probably guilty of overemphasizing the positive things about what we do. But if you have a president who’s not able to do that, you probably have the wrong president.

As you begin a second decade in office, what needs to be done at PSR?

I’m a sociologist by training, and I’ve spent the last 30 years writing and giving speeches about the future of churches. This is in many ways a difficult and challenging time for progressive Christians or mainline Protestants. It requires different qualities of leadership than in the past.

I came to PSR with the hope that we could be a place that people could turn to not simply for adequate or even excellent leadership, but for transformational leadership — that is, for people who could help the church imagine what its future might look like. I often say to students at the beginning of their time at PSR that the church they dream of serving is very likely one they’re going to have to build themselves. That’s a difference between this generation of students and earlier generations; earlier, you sort of knew what it was to be successful in ministry. Today those notions of success are much vaguer, much less clear. So, many of our students are going to have to imagine and create, along with other people, the ministries they feel are needed in the world.

And that takes something different from what seminaries are used to providing. I’m both clear about the need and in some ways not sure how you do it. I see some glimpses of it in churches and agencies and ministries that our graduates have gone out and started. And I think one of the things I hope we can do in the future is to take advantage of the experience of those graduates who are creating the new kinds of ministries that the world needs. I’m thinking of people like Bishop Yvette Flunder in San Francisco, or the new church that meets on our campus on Sunday mornings — New Spirit Community Church — or other new and renewed ministries that I see around the country. I think of alums who go off to what looks like very traditional ministries in local churches associated with the UCC and the United Methodists and the Disciples, but refashion those ministries in ways that they become oases, places of spiritual vitality in the midst, sometimes, of a very dry land.

So, one of our challenges is to think even more freshly about what ministry in the future is going to take.

How do you meet these and other challenges?

One of the things I’m proud of is that we now have in place a strategic plan that focuses our attention on what needs to be done in the next five years: on leadership issues; dismantling racism and building cross-cultural competence; telling the PSR story; and building the resources we need to sustain ourselves for the future. That’s something we could not have done ten years ago — we would have lacked a consensus about the work we need to do.

Let me add this about one of the plan’s goals: Dealing with racism in this culture is painful. But I believe that if we’re going to embody a tradition of boldness we need to confront the pain that has existed and continues to exist on this campus. I mourn the fact that racism is a continuing reality here at PSR and throughout the broader GTU. But I celebrate the fact that we’re facing the truth of racism on our campus. We’re committed to confronting the people, policies, and practices that contribute to oppression, and to building a community in which everybody’s experience is treated with full respect.

How would you define your leadership style?

I’ve used this past decade as a time to learn as much as a time to lead. And that may say something about my philosophy of leadership. I don’t come to work every day with an agenda. I come to work every day with values and with commitments, and I try to help people understand what those are.

Leadership is a complicated thing, and I think people both overestimate and underestimate the power of a president. I have very little power to make decisions about how much financial aid a student’s going to get, or whether a certain staff person is chosen or not. Those are important decisions, but they are not decisions that I need to make.

I think people also underestimate the power a president has to shape a culture. Any leader has a kind of ability to define reality. On the PSR website I quote the poet Wallace Stevens, who says: “We live in our definition of a place, and not in the place itself.” I really believe that’s true, that we live in our definitions, and one of the things that a president or a leader in a church gets to do is to challenge definitions when they’re out of date, and to suggest ways of interpreting who you are while you’re there.

I’ll go back to my early years here. I came to a place that was feeling, in some ways, bad about itself, feeling that it was in decline. One of the things I had the opportunity to do, was to say: “That’s not the way it is. This is not the end of a great era for PSR, it’s the beginning of a new era for PSR.”

What’s ahead for you?

I turned 60 this year, I’ve been here 10 years, and I know I’m not going to be here another 20. So I’m beginning to ask myself: What is the defining work I can help do in the next period of time? I want to use this current academic year to help determine what the school needs from me in the time I have left as president. I look at this year as an opportunity for the community as a whole to give me input on what the next stage in my leadership ought to be.

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Friends of Bill

The Bulletin asked some of Bill McKinney’s colleagues for their assessments of his first 10 years as president of PSR.

Barbara Wheeler, president of Auburn Theological Seminary, New York City

“I know Bill best as a public intellectual, a public theologian, and a thinker about American religion. I think he’s one of the most original and candid commentators on American religion. He sees very clearly the way things are, not the way they should be, as many do. He’s always willing to entertain evidence to the contrary which, in my view, is the mark of intellectual integrity.

“From my vantage point, at PSR he’s taken what has always been a very good school and managed to broadcast its virtues to a very wide public and to take it even further. It’s now one of the truly excellent theological schools, financially sound, with a great faculty, support base, and public reputation.”

Scott Hafner, member of PSR’s Board of Trustees from 1994 to 2006, chair from 2002–2006

“Authority at an institution like PSR is not granted but earned. Bill really has earned it, and he earned it quickly because he came in as a scholar with his own body of research. He has a keen intellectual mind that never stops working. He also has earned authority as an administrator through his careful financial management.

“When he first came, he said: PSR needs to be a place where important conversations about difficult subjects happen and where all parties are respected for their opinions. That set a tone that has made a huge difference in the culture of PSR.

“Bill models much of what is best about New England: no nonsense, a sharp mind, extreme practicality, and an absence of showy falseness. But also, over the past ten years, he’s learned some of what’s best about the West, including finding expression for the more emotional side of the human spirit. The Bay Area has softened him in some wonderful ways. Plus, Linda McKinney now has a perfect tan! She’s been a great partner to him and to the school.”

Doug Adams, professor of Christianity and the Arts at PSR, member of the PSR faculty since 1976

“In my time at PSR, we’ve had two very great presidents: Neely McCarter and Bill McKinney, both of long duration, both managed to redouble the endowment during times of recession, and both were excellent not only as fund raisers but with the faculty because they were scholars with minds that people want to be with. Bill McKinney is an up-to-date scholar, he reads thoroughly, and he has interesting, refreshing new thoughts.

“The average term of a president of a college, university, or seminary is less than four years. There are move than 100 mainline seminaries in North America that are viable, but I don’t think there are more than three or four successful presidents in all of those put together. Fortunately, in Bill, we’ve got one of those rare ones.”

Jerry Vallery, current chair of PSR’s board of trustees

“Bill brought morale back to the organization and restored it to financial strength. Building from that, he has now provided the leadership that has helped us craft a strategic plan for our future, the guiding plan that will take us to the next level.

“He has changed the culture here and fostered openness in communication. I see this at the board level, where he seeks input, listens to it, and then acts. I see very much the same in his interactions with the faculty and students. It’s just part of his DNA to reach out and embrace everybody, regardless of their orientation or background or ethnicity. He lives the fact that we are an inclusive body, and that’s a key aspect of the culture of PSR.”

Daniel Aleshire, executive director, the Association of Theological Schools (ATS), Pittsburgh, PA

“Bill McKinney is one of the few ATS presidents who has been able to make both a significant scholarly contribution and a significant contribution as an administrative leader. He sees a wide range of issues clearly, speaks honestly and thoughtfully to those issues, and makes a contribution through his perspective. As a researcher, consultant, and president, Bill has established himself as an influential presence in North American theological education.”

Julien Phillips, member of the board of trustees (1993–2002 and currently)

“Bill is wonderfully skilled as a leader in being able to assess what PSR could reasonably do, what it’s called to do, what is politically practical for it to do, and what he thinks is right for it to do. He balances all those things very well, pushes the limits, and backs off when he’s pushed beyond where others will go.

“I am by profession a manager of change in complex organizations. I look on what Bill McKinney has done at PSR as one of the most remarkable examples of organizational transformation that I’ve seen.”

Hubert Locke, former acting president and trustee of PSR

“There are few, if any, others who could have presided over PSR with the skill, grace, and firmness that Bill McKinney has brought to the presidency of this beloved institution. PSR has not merely survived in an era in which theological schools have waned, it has excelled. And much of that is due to Bill’s vision and extraordinary leadership. He and Linda have been a gift for which we should all sing a Te Deum (a rare liturgical event in Protestant circles, but well worth doing to celebrate the anniversary of a rare individual!)”