St. Vladimir's began the practice of independent certified audits of its financial records in 1963; prior to that, all budgets were reviewed and approved by the members of the pan-Orthodox Board of Trustees.
Governance
.jpg "(from left) Dean Archpriest John Behr, Board Executive Chair Alex Machaskee, former Executive Chair Anne Glynn Mackoul, and Chancellor/CEO Archpriest Chad Hatfield in the seminary chapel.")
(from left) Dean Archpriest John Behr, Board Executive Chair Alex Machaskee, former Executive Chair Anne Glynn Mackoul, and Chancellor/CEO Archpriest Chad Hatfield in the seminary chapel.At St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, governance and accountability is a commitment shared by the Board of Trustees, employees, and faculty. The Board of Trustees plays an active role in overseeing the integrity of the Seminary's financial statements as well as ensuring financial accountability. For many years the Seminary has had audited financial statements prepared by an outside external auditing firm. These statements have always been made available to the public. Copies of the most recent years of audited financial statements can be accessed on this site.
The seminary's Board of Trustees is independent, experienced, and diverse. Its membership, drawn from the various Orthodox jurisdictions that the Seminary serves, includes clergy and laity distinguished by their achievements in such fields as finance, business, media, law, medicine, and education. In addition to participating in regular meetings of the full Board, trustees express their commitment to the Seminary and its mission through service on various Board committees, thus enabling the Board to govern more effectively.
Strategic Plan
In December 2001, the Board of Trustees initiated a major planning effort: SVS 2010, which was subsequently kicked off in February 2002 with a Trustee, Alumni, Faculty and Staff Workshop. SVS also gathered input via interviews with selected church leaders; focus groups at the 2002 Summer Institute, the OCA All-American Council and Orthodox Education Day; by a survey form sent out to all recipients of the seminary's Christmas newsletter in November 2002; and by a survey conducted among the Spring 2003 student body.
Ten teams then prepared final recommendations on strategic initiatives to be undertaken by the seminary. Each team focused on one particular strategic initiative, and these were presented for review and approval at the May 2003 Board of Trustees meeting.
The results of this major planning effort became SVS 2010, the Strategic Plan. The Board of Trustees developed detailed three-year goals and objectives and a booklet about the Strategic Plan was included as an insert in the Summer 2004 issue of SVSNews.
The seminary works towards the achievement of the goals and objectives of the plan, while reviewing and updating it on an annual basis.
Download SVS 2010, the Strategic Plan in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.
