UTS Plans for Distance Education

With respect to the use of cutting-edge media for the purposes of education, Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon were ahead of the curve. From equipping us with videocassette recorders and Divine Principle videos for door-to-door evangelism in the late ’70s to calling for video-based home schooling in the ’80s to awakening the University of Bridgeport to distance learning in the early ’90s, they set the pace for the world. Today, True Mother Hak Ja Han Moon is calling us to maximize the Internet’s power for education.

Unification Theological Seminary (UTS) has offered distance education since the late 1990s. Since 2011, UTS has offered a large number of online courses, both for graduate credits and continuing education units.

Now we are ready to go to the next level.

Our goal today is to offer online degree programs to Unificationists worldwide. In collaboration with the Family Federation, UTS is now planning to build upon our experience with distance learning by upgrading tech support, strengthening course design, and providing increased support for students.

UTS is currently assessing the needs of its global market. This February we conducted a distance learning survey at the Cheon Il Guk Leaders’ Assembly in Korea, and in March we conducted the same survey at the European Cheon Il Guk Assembly in Prague, Czech Republic. We are discussing the method to conduct this survey of our American movement this spring.

As we engage in this planning stage, we look at the costs and benefits of theological education from the viewpoint of the seminary founders, Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon. To provide and take advantage of the opportunity to gain theological education, there is a cost. It requires a financial commitment on the part of the seminary, our sponsoring institutions, and our students.

But our founders believed that the benefit, a unifying educational experience for upcoming generations of young leaders from around the world, far outweighs the cost. “Seminary” means “seedbed,” and UTS has been a seedbed of the global movement since 1975, graduating leaders throughout the world to serve in all levels of church leadership, CARP, interfaith peacebuilding, service learning, Ocean Church, evangelism, education, world missions, doctoral studies and more.

New York City and Barrytown are not the only places to gather the next generation of students. Young leaders gather on the Internet. This is where they know how to learn and the next-generation faculty members know how to teach. Teaching and learning online are progressing rapidly, both in quality and quantity. Distance learning looms large in the future of all seminaries. True Father knew it; True Mother knows it. UTS can do it.