Rev. Prof. Robert Roethemeyer

Robert Roethemeyer joined the faculty in June 1997. From May 1988 until May 1997, he served as public services librarian at Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis, where he earned his Master of Divinity in 1986. His Master of Arts in Library Science is from the University of Missouri in Columbia.

He has worked to provide a balance of print and digital information resources to support teaching, learning, and research on campus. He managed the library renovation and expansion project, culminating in the 2015 dedication of the Wayne and Barbara Kroemer Library complex. In May 2018, he became the inaugural holder of the Wakefield-Kroemer Director’s Chair in Library and Information Services.

He led the institutional self-study processes that resulted in ten-year reaffirmations of accreditation from the Association of Theological Schools and the Higher Learning Commission in 2010 and 2020.

Regionally, he served five years (2010–2015), two as chair, on the Midwest Collaborative for Library Services Board of Directors. Since 1997, he has served on the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) Board of Directors, including two three-year cycles in the chair role. PALNI is a collaboration of twenty-four private and seminary libraries. In August 2022, PALNI honored him with the “Outstanding Achievement Award for Leadership in External Partner Building” and in August 2024, the “Outstanding Achievement Award for Leadership in Deep Collaboration.”

Nationally, the 2019 LCMS convention elected him to a six-year term on the Concordia Historical Institute Board of Governors.

Internationally, in August 2013, he formally launched the Chemnitz Library Initiative at the International Lutheran Council Theological Seminaries World Conference in Palanga, Lithuania. Aligned with LCMS President Harrison’s Global Seminary Initiative, the Chemnitz Library Initiative reaches seminary to seminary and library to library to uplift global theological education.

Professor Roethemeyer and his wife, Kay, have a grown daughter, Christina.