President Robert Hughes congratulates Mark Werner '98, right, for the generosity of a class gift.  The scene was the 1999 Convocation banquet.

Sitting in his office on a late Spring day, Seminary President Robert G. Hughes has the air of a man who has run a challenging leg of a relay race and is ready to pass the baton.

Hughes steps down at the end of 1999 from the post he’s held for eight years. After a short sabbatical, he looks forward to returning to the classroom as a teacher, a once familiar role he has needed to place on the back burner as the chief seminary ambassador/administrator. (One student has told this writer the president seemed energized this spring by combining his pedagogical talents with those new-fangled gadgets in the Seminary’s high-tech classroom.) So, what’s the president’s baton made of?

One highlight of his presidency, Hughes believes, has been to set a challenge before seminarians to see their education as "crucial step in a personal calling process."

"I tell students to practice the use of discernment language and thinking," Hughes says. "A seminary education is what students do to evaluate their gifts and abilities for ministry. Learning to discern is a crucial ability as they look down the road toward their second, third and fourth calls in life."

On another level, Hughes recalls the development of a three-stage campus renewal plan, slated for completion by the year 2014, and notes with gratitude that alumni, donors and the Seminary community rallied impressively to complete the first stage. Stage one produced the Wiedemann Center with its 66 apartment units, the aforementioned classroom and an Augsburg Fortress Bookstore. Stage one also yielded a badly needed playground for children connected to the Seminary, and a "lot of underground infrastructure upgrading that doesn’t show."

Hughes notes that the first phase’s completion presented him with a certain dilemma about whether to "re-up for another stint" as president. "I decided that it’s time for someone else to step in now," Hughes says. "I really want to return to a teaching career I began here in 1972. I believe the time to leave is not during a time of trouble but rather when things are going well. It is better to feel like you are leaving a year too soon than a day too late."

For the president his oncoming transition means returning to the teaching of preaching, his long-term specialty, but also an opportunity to initiate instruction to Seminary seniors in the discipline of leadership management studies. "That will mean teaching from a different perspective for me and for the Seminary," he says. He also looks forward to writing on leadership issues.

His legacy? The president believes he has played an important role in Lutheran seminary restructuring. "A study of theological education in 1989 at the advent of the new Lutheran Church was done in an atmosphere of dis-ease and suspicion," he recalls. "There were concerns about the locations and numbers of seminaries. Did we need as many?"

In ensuing years, seminary presidents, faculty members and staffs conferred to develop a new spirit of cooperation between seminaries, he says. "The result was setting up clusters, linking the eight seminaries in partnership in several regions of the country." The cluster that now connects LTSP with Gettysburg and Southern seminaries "has created a different spirit of excitement and cooperation, and all three seminaries are now doing well," he says. The Seminary has spawned other academic partnerships too, with Moravian Seminary in Bethlehem, PA, with General Theological Seminary, the oldest Episcopal seminary in the country, located in New York’s Manhattan; and four international seminary partnerships – with Bratislava Seminary in Slovakia; Ompimula Seminary in Africa, Collegium Ecumenem in Munich, and Bangalore Seminary in India.

Under Hughes’s guidance a new era of programs also emerged. The annual Magnet Church seminar invites pastors to consider issues of congregational renewal. A Latino program offers a Hispanic focus to seminary education. Being tested is a first call theological education continuing education program, which involves the Seminary and synods in working with rostered leaders in the first three years of a call. And the Seminary is also testing an in-depth Theological Education for Discipleship program aimed at "the whole people of God," comprised of congregational leaders.

Hughes is also proud that the Seminary has adopted a "strategic plan" mentality, moving the institution forward with vision statements, strategizing and action plans involving all units of the Seminary. "Planning has become a routine part of life here," he says. "I think part of the legacy is that we’ve brought about an era together here of good feeling and cooperation. This is a collegial place," he says. "We’ve moved planning from a once-a-decade process to a year-round exercise, and our budget is better linked to our planning." In addition, staff, faculty and students are working "more effectively together" as cross-functional teams in their planning, Hughes believes.

What are the challenges ahead? Hughes says he thinks the church as a whole is beginning to do a better job of "embracing the concept of mission" as a way of being the church. "More and more thinking is being done about the revitalizing of congregations and new starts for congregations, and that kind of thinking is more accepted today than it was 10 years ago. I find this exciting," he says.

"For seminaries the challenge is to play a part in stirring up more leaders about mission and what mission means on behalf of Christ," he says. "The challenge is for congregations not to just grow themselves, but to get them focused on becoming inspired to serve others more imaginatively." Hughes fears the church may have lost a generation of youth by losing a sufficient emphasis on Christ’s mission. But he believes leaders, in beginning to recover an understanding of mission, are moving beyond youth programming that is entertaining toward challenging young people to "think about the meaning of their faith and the challenge that comes to them through that kind of thinking."

The president is also pleased with the spiritually minded second and third-career seminarians that have decided on a professional church career. "They bring to us a wisdom of the world and its challenges when they become part of our community," he says. "Many of them are giving up significant professional lives to become spiritual leaders, and thus they are exceptionally committed. But we need a sense of balance. We need to work hard to attract younger seminarians to our community as well."

Favorite memories? His installation as president in 1991 with family present, a spring convocation celebration of the Bonhoeffer Center, featuring theologian Eberhardt Bethke, the relationships he’s known with donors, the Presidents Council and the Board of Trustees. Making friends for the Seminary. "Making friends is an important part of life," he says. "I’ve also appreciated the chance to work with good folks here, and the faculty’s willingness to take leadership on issues like Called to Common Mission." (A faculty statement on CCM and answers to commonly asked questions about CCM are both featured on the Seminary’s web site at www.ltsp.edu.)

Hughes greatly appreciates the loving support of his wife of 38 years, Dona-Lee, and his three grown sons, Jeffrey, Randall and David. He refreshes himself these days with a relatively new hobby – ocean kayaking.

And, of course, Robert Hughes refreshes his working colleagues with an ever-present sense of humor and musical laugh. Echoes of that laughter will soon be moving to his new office location on the Seminary’s third floor as he remains a vibrant part of Seminary life.