ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) — Hardin-Simmons University (HSU) has announced that the Logsdon Seminary and its programs will be closed.

In a letter sent out Friday night, HSU President Eric Bruntmyer says the board has approved new programs, but has also “closed other programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels including Logsdon Seminary and its programs.”

Financial motivations are seemingly behind the decision to close the program, as Bruntmyer says in the letter, “Structural adjustments like these are important as we strive toward achieving financial excellence not only for ourselves, but for those to come.”

No additional details have been released, but the letter states “In the next week, the appropriate deans and vice presidents will be communicating the details of these actions.”

HSU announced the closings of several programs in Oct. 2018 due to financial difficulty, and were forced to make 30 faculty cuts by the 2019 fall semester.

The entire letter reads as follows:

“Our campus has seen a variety of trends and challenges in its 129 years and has a proven legacy of rising boldly to overcome. Our leadership will continue to innovate and adapt our institution, and we look forward to teaching and training students for another 129 years.

As we begin the Spring semester, we celebrate an exceptional 90% fall-to-spring persistence rate for our 2019 freshmen class, our 2nd largest incoming class on record. As we look toward the upcoming academic year, we have more applications, admits, and deposits than we had at this time in 2018 or 2019.

Today, February 7, the Hardin-Simmons University Board of Trustees concluded the first of three regular sessions for the 2020 calendar year. Our trustees continue to lead us in actively positioning HSU to sustain its legacy of providing an education enlightened by Christian faith and values for all current and future HSU students.

The Board of Trustees adopted The Way Forward, a strategic financial plan that calls for an annual evaluation of all academic programs. The plan provides a sustainable framework allowing HSU to proactively pursue outstanding academic opportunities and to position Hardin-Simmons favorably in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The first steps of implementation included organizing programs into five colleges and schools, resulting in a newly ordered Deans Council. The Board approved new programs, and it closed other programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels including Logsdon Seminary and its programs. In the next week, the appropriate deans and vice presidents will be communicating the details of these actions.

The Board increased the emphasis of the university’s historic mission of providing Christian education across the undergraduate curriculum by dedicating endowment earnings to scholarships for religion courses at the undergraduate level. The Board also conducted its regular work in authorizing the award of degrees at the May 2020 commencement, approving faculty promotions, and granting faculty emeritus status to outstanding faculty who have recently retired from the university.

Under The Way Forward, Hardin-Simmons University will always pursue financial excellence, which will allow us to maintain our academic excellence. In the coming weeks, months, and years the HSU campus will change. Structural adjustments like these are important as we strive toward achieving financial excellence not only for ourselves, but for those to come. Last year’s actions began our move toward financial sustainability. The decisions made today continue the process.

Our Trustees made these decisions with prayerful consideration and spiritual discernment, emphasizing that Hardin-Simmons will continue to hold to the Christian values on which it was founded. Our students will continue to participate in chapel services and weekly Bible studies. They will have expanded opportunities to participate in ministry events locally and abroad and to take additional Bible courses.

As an institution, we must move forward in unity, knowing that together we are paving the way for HSU’s long-term success. We have an outstanding history of persistence and innovation – standing strong to meet the challenges of tomorrow. Our entire community has invested, and will continue to invest, in this university in a multitude of ways, allowing HSU to follow its mission of providing an education enlightened by Christian faith and values. HSU will always encourage and foster the Christian environment that is woven deeply and enduringly throughout our university.

This is who we’ve been, this is who we are, and this is who we will always be.”