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Abstract

Understanding the past roles of women within the 100-year lifespan of Asbury Theological Seminary is an important exercise in institutional history. Educational institutions frequently experience turnover in students, faculty, and administration at high rates. Institutional memory frequently is held by a few older members of the faculty and staff and more importantly by the archives of the institution. Institutional memory provides the foundation for changing policy decisions, understanding the institutional mission, and following how previous administrations dealt with a constantly changing cultural and social context. In the case of Asbury Theological Seminary, this paper explores an institution rooted in the Holiness Movement, which historically allowed and promoted women in ministry. Understanding this history in one Holiness institution provides a case study of the process by which the issue of women in ministry developed over a century. Similar studies done by multiple institutions could provide a broader understanding of how the role of women in ministry was conceived by the movement as a whole.

Asbury Theological Seminary started in 1923 and from its start had women on the faculty. While many of the early women taught speech, music, religious education, and served as professional librarians, which were areas more frequently open to women, there were some notable exceptions. Due to the presence of these women and the social and cultural issues of the war years in the 1940s, the number of women students increased dramatically. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s these roles declined until the Seminary reached its low point in 1971. However, student voices, along with an important woman in the Board of Trustees, led to an institutional revaluation of the role of women in ministry and academia leading up to an intentional practice of including more women faculty and highlighting  the issues of women at an institutional level. By 2005, the Seminary hit its high-level mark of 13 women on the faculty along with a massive rise in women students. But as institutional commitment waned, the numbers of women faculty fell, and the growth of women students plateaued with very slow growth at the present. This paper seeks to learn from this history and propose lessons which can be learned from the history of the institution itself.

DOI

10.7252/Journal.01.2026S.07

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