BANGOR – Bangor Theological Seminary’s board of trustees voted unanimously on Saturday to move to Husson College over the summer.

Husson’s board of trustees is scheduled to vote this weekend on the proposal.

The decision to uproot the seminary, which has been located in a former hayfield since 1819, was driven by financial considerations, according to trustee Jane Bragg of Bangor

“It’s been obvious for a while that we couldn’t continue to support financially that large a campus,” she said Tuesday. “This is a problem that other seminaries have had. We, as a board, decided to be proactive to preserve and enhance the mission of the program we have.

“We see this opportunity to work with Husson as a tremendous opportunity,” she continued. “I would say trustees are enthusiastic and energized and excited about the possibilities of a co-location.”

If the details can be worked out between the two institutions, the seminary would operate from Bell Hall at Husson for a couple of years before constructing its own building. Tentative plans call for the seminary to lease land from the private college and construct its own building near the Center for Family Business on the eastern edge of the campus.

For the past few years, Husson has based its health care curriculum in Bell Hall, a former dorm. That program is scheduled to move this summer into a new building, still under construction.

The planned move to Husson will not affect the seminary’s Portland location at the State Street Congregational Church.

“This is an opportunity for collaboration,” Husson President William Beardsley said Tuesday. “The seminary has always served rural churches. We’ve always focused on family businesses in rural Maine. I see some similarities in our missions.”

BTS was founded in 1814, Husson in 1898. Both have changed and evolved over the years, with many of those changes driven by their student populations. More than 85 percent of the 130 students who attend the seminary commute to the Bangor and Portland campuses. Just 25 of those students attend full time.

To break even, the seminary needs 100 full-time equivalent students enrolled each year, BTS President William Imes has said. For the past few years, it has averaged 65.

Husson has a student body of 1,600, a majority of whom live on campus. While it is still primarily a business college, its nursing and physical therapy programs have grown dramatically in the past decade.

The campus also is home to the New England School of Communications, which has its own facility and is independent of the college, as BTS would be.

Beardsley and Imes both have emphasized the educational benefits to students of both schools if they are able to take courses at both institutions. For many years, the seminary has had a professor of ethics who regularly teaches a class about many of the ethical challenges faced by those working in the health care industry.

That would fit in well with Husson’s expanding heath care curriculum. Ethics, presented from a theological point of view, also would be of interest to Husson’s traditional business students, Beardsley has said.

From the seminary’s perspective, such a close association would make it easier for students on its Bangor Plan, which allows students to earn their master of divinity degrees while pursuing an undergraduate education, to complete their studies on the same campus.

The fate of the seminary’s historic campus, including its chapel, library, offices and residential apartment buildings, won’t be clear for many months, according to Imes. BTS has not yet hired an appraiser to assess the individual value of the buildings, although the campus and its contents are insured for $8 million.

Mindful that students, faculty, staff and alumni feel a special connection to the historic campus, Imes is planning to hold the school’s annual opening convocation in September at Beach Chapel on the first day of classes and then lead an organized kind of exodus to Husson.

“I just feel this is the right direction,” Imes said Monday of the pending move. “I do feel the pain of the folks who had a transformative experience in this place, who were really shaped to be Christian ministers here. This is very precious ground for them. And I know that it’s a heavy load to think about leaving it.

“At same time, so many alumni have said that they want the school to survive.”