Operations Funds vs. Operating Expenses
UPDATE ON THE ATS ACADEMIC WORLD
STEERING THE CURRICULUM TO STRENGTHEN THE TRAINING NEEDS OF OUR STUDENTS
Total Income for Five Years
Joanna Feliciano-Soberano, Ph.D. Academic Dean, ATS Have you visited ATS lately? Total Donations for Five Years
ATS is bustling with studentrelated activities in the evenings! Why is this so? Because majority of our students are now bi-vocational. These men and women are mostly professionals working during the day and studying in the evenings but they have come to ATS because of their calling and heart for the ministry. The administration and faculty seriously consider the calling or vocation of our students. In this regard, faculty conversations and workshops focus on understanding the vocation of our students and their training needs. Transformation Theology, the flagship course, is deemed important and aimed to be integrated in every piece of the curriculum.
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Additionally, ATS responds to the challenges of 21st century learning. Information-Communication Technology or ICT-enabled education is applied as a pedagogical tool in all our residential programs. The MBA program is now fully online as well as the Graduate Diploma in Christian Education. By 2017, the Graduate Diploma in Intercultural Urban Studies will also go fully online. Faculty line up is critical for ATS. This AY 2016-17, we are blessed to have 2 new full time faculty members: Christopher Sabanal, PhD, for the Theology courses, and Irene S. Yang, Ed.D. for the Christian Education courses.
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The Lord has faithfully provided the operational needs of the seminary for the past 47 years since its establishment. God has graciously provided us with more partners who are generously supporting our students through scholarships. We have seen a significant increase in our students' contributions, which include scholarship payments in the past two years. It has gone up to contribute 63% of the total ATS income. In 2011-2012, it was only 46%. Praise God for this!
Operations Funds vs. Operating Expenses
As the Year 2016 Ends…
Total Income for Five Years
NARRATIVE OF
Financial Update
Total Donations for Five Years
by Fernando Lua, D. Min.
Here are some comparative charts of the financial status of ATS for the past 5 school years.
The Registrar’s Report ATS is blessed this year with 242 students for the residential and MBA programs, including fully online students. This year, we were able to launch our fully online courses and we are ever grateful to our God for sustaining our systems and personnel.
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Our scholarship is also doing very well as we have 56 full scholars and 183 partial scholars. Praise the Lord with us for also sending out 47 graduates last June. We are proud of our ATS alumni and students.
We would like to end this year with an exclamation of praise to our LORD for being the constant guide, sustainer, and provider of ATS. His faithfulness, indeed, never fails! In lieu of our bi-annual newsletter, the ATS community would like to update you, our friends and partners, by way of a praise report. Here, we outline the goodness of God in key areas of life and growth in the seminary. It is our hope that as you receive this report, you will be praising the Lord with us. You, as a friend and partner of the seminary, are a constant testament of God’s love to His workers at Asian Theological Seminary (ATS). The Lord faithfully reminds us that He is the One shepherding ATS as we hear stories from students, faculty, alumni, as well as ministry partners of the tremendous work they are able to accomplish through His enabling. O, how lavish God’s generosity truly is! As the season of light and love is fast approaching, we pray that you will experience a bubbling of praise deep in your hearts for all the Lord has brought all of us this year.
TIMOTEO D. GENER, Ph.D. President, Asian Theological Seminary
We praise God though because we saw clear signs that He will provide. One European Christian foundation committed 16,000 euros to help in the project. With this, we were emboldened to believe that God will provide. True enough, several more ministry partners were approached and they gladly gave towards this project. Even the engineer-contractor donated his services. The overall cost amounted to P2,814,587.79, inclusive of some new air-conditioners and office equipment. The Lord came through and provided all the funds needed for the project! Glory to His Name! Since 2011, it has been our vision to have all the administrative staff come together in a common office space. The reason for this is that we want the ATS staff to be able to work together as one team, delivering efficient services to the students, alumni, and guests. New students feel lost with the old office set up where offices were housed in their own separate rooms; some were even located at the back portion of the campus. It was all the more difficult when one staff would get sick and be absent as we could not just reassign another staff to temporarily cover for the position due to the way the office locations were set up.
After five months (December 2015 to April 2016) of cramming in with different offices to give way to the renovation project, we were able to get back to the brand new administration building, this time together as one ATS team. The renovated main office was dedicated to the Lord last June 16. Now we are enjoying the benefits of the new offices and being in the same building altogether. Thank You, God, for the ministry partners who love Your work at ATS. To Your Name be the glory!
BUILDING
One temporary solution that we did for several years was to set up one common area for the staff during enrolment time to minimize the need for students to go from one room to another. This was a big help but only for enrolment. In early 2015, the ATS Board gave the go signal to have this renovation project. The President was tasked to raise the funds for this. We initially thought that P1.2 million would be enough but when the engineer-contractor made the assessment and presented the plan together with the cost estimate, we were told that it will be double the amount. 4 | ASIAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
the Dream by Fernando Lua, D. Min. VP for Finance and Administration
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