of John Tietjen At the end of 1968, Fuerbringer announced his retirement as president of Concordia Seminary, triggering the selection process for his replacement. Presidents of the LCMS seminaries at that time were elected by a vote of the following four entities, with each entity having one vote: the president of the LCMS, the president of the LCMS district in which the institution was located (in this case, the Missouri District), the seminary's Board of Control, and the LCMS Board of Higher Education. At the time, these positions were all under the control of either supporters of the ecumenical movement or theological modernists. Among this group, there was increasing concern that the incumbent synodical president, Oliver Harms, was going to lose his reelection bid. Harms was a key supporter of the Lutheran Council in the United States of America (LCUSA) and other inter-Lutheran cooperation, and the modernist faction was concerned that confessional insurgents would disrupt the process of selection for presidency of Concordia Seminary; hindering the greater goal of Lutheran unity. In addition, members of the seminary's Board of Control would be elected at the convention. There was great urgency to complete the process of selecting a new seminary president before the upcoming synod convention could interfere. While the procedure for actually electing the seminary president was normal, the timing was unusual in that It was the first time a new president of the seminary would be elected before the actual retirement of his predecessor. In May 1969, John Tietjen was selected president of Concordia Seminary after sixteen years as a minister in New Jersey and three years heading the public relations division of LCUSA. Although a virtual unknown among the broader synod, Tietjen was well known in the ecumenical movement. The selection of Tietjen caused great excitement among the faculty of Concordia Seminary and in wider Lutheran circles. In the words of the wife of Ed Schroeder (then a professor at the seminary), "Tietjen is the one we wanted". Election of Jacob Preus Two months later, Jacob Preus—then the president of the other LCMS seminary, Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, Illinois—was elected president of the synod in an upset over the incumbent Harms. Preus's 1969 campaign for the LCMS presidency was supported by conservatives within the church body who opposed moves by Harms to institute altar and pulpit fellowship with the American Lutheran Church (ALC), which did not hold