Denver Seminary

6 SPRING 2021 courses and a small group of elective courses online. By the 2015–2016 academic year, Denver Seminary had 628 online enrollments. They also had a new awareness of the fact that the current model only served the existing population of Denver Seminary students. In light of this, Denver Seminary set out to expand their offerings and serve students outside of the existing student population. "We would need to move beyond and consider an online certificate or degree programming," said Aaron Johnson, associate dean of Educational Technology. "Dr. MacFarland formed the Course Production Prioritization Committee… 'to design and market alternative delivery in such a way that a prospective student can see how they can accomplish their goals.'" For Dr. MacFarland, the following season was marked by a convergence of key ingredients to create an online Master of Divinity program that maintained the spirit and vision of Denver Seminary, served new students, and didn't overly tax the staff and faculty. Dr. MacFarland sees God's hand in providing the necessary ingredients for such a program. "We had a board and donors willing to commit financial resources," Dr. MacFarland recalled. "The president of the Seminary had vision and heart for more and more people to access theological education." Dr. MacFarland says that, as Denver Seminary has grown its educational technology department, he's come to know the staff as "people with servants' hearts who were knowledgeable not just with respect to technology but to andragogy. As we think about faculty and others receiving training, it's not only in the area of how to use the technology, but how do I teach online?" In addition to staff members who were solely focused on online education, Dr. MacFarland says that building "faculty ownership" of online education was imperative. Dr. MacFarland, Johnson, and others recognized the need to formulate their approach to course design. And, with that, they needed to build training for the faculty that would empower them not to be overburdened, but truly supported. "We began to have faculty share their stories. We had faculty who were experiencing some success and seeing some of the benefits [of online learning]. Our Greek professor, Elodie Emig, was able to say that her online students were performing at the same level that her in-person students were." Dr. MacFarland said that a professor in the Christian Formation department began to see students really connecting through online courses. Stories from students began to come in as well, like an airline pilot whose haphazard schedule would never have allowed for traditional theological education. Now that Denver offered his program online, he could access the knowledge and formation he'd desired. The pursuit and implementation of online education opportunities could not simply be motivated by a desire to "keep up with the Joneses." Rather, it had to fit into the philosophy of education already held by Denver Seminary—one that prizes integrated learning, redemptive relationships, and addressing the needs of the whole person.

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