(RNS) — For much of the past decade, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Once the nation’s largest seminary, and one of six Southern Baptist seminaries, the school has been a center of controversy since the 2018 firing of its former president, Paige Patterson, for mishandling a claim of sexual abuse by a female student at a previous job. Since then, the school has ousted a second president, who then sued the school, admitted to overspending its budget by $140 million, fought in court with ex-employees over a foundation that supported the school, dealt with a Department of Justice investigation, and experienced internal board conflict over declining enrollment and fiscal crisis.
By the time David Dockery, a soft-spoken but well-respected Baptist leader, was named the school’s interim president in the fall of 2022, the school was out of cash. “In September of 2022 we had $4.2 million of short-term debt with the credit line maxed out, and wondering if we were going to be able to navigate our way even through that particular academic year,” Dockery told RNS in a recent interview.
Today, the school is in a place of “genuine stability,” according to Dockery, 72, who dropped the interim from his title in 2023. Enrollment is up, the school has paid off its short-term debt and has $10 million in cash on hand. More importantly, perhaps, the trustees and school administration are on the same page. “The spirit on campus is positive, and people are encouraged about the direction of the seminary,” Dockery said.
“I’m not surprised at all that Southwestern has stabilized under him,” said Barry Hankins, a Baylor University historian. “He just has a track record of being able to do that.”
Before coming to Southwestern, Dockery was president of Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, and Trinity Eva …