Donald DeYoung is chairman of the science and mathematics department at Grace College in Winona Lake, Ind.

C. Smalley is president of Arizona Theological Seminary and Bible College. In the school’s academic philosophy, which Smalley wrote, the school bills itself as favoring “academy model” over the “university model” of education adopted by most seminaries. It has also forgone accreditation with non-Christian educational entities. Contact

David Buschart is a professor of theology and historical studies at Denver Seminary. He has written that the challenges facing seminaries reflect the social, economic and cultural shifts affecting all institutions.

Ann Jefferson is program coordinator for Theological Education for Leadership, a new distance learning program at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif.

Robert Freeman is assistant professor of distance learning at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.

Sharon Daloz Parks is a senior fellow at the Whidbey Institute at Chinook in Clinton, Wash. In 2010, she spoke before the faculty at Washington Theological Consortium on the subject of challenges to contemporary theological education.

Malcolm L. Warford served as director of the Lexington Seminar, a 10-year project on theological teaching for the church’s ministries supported by the Lilly Endowment and sponsored by Lexington Theological Seminary. He is the editor of Revitalizing Practice: Collaborative Models for Theological Faculties.

David Sebastian is dean of Anderson University School of Theology in Anderson, Ind., which saw a dip in enrollment through the 1990s and a steep increase through 2008. He has written about the turnaround and about trends in theological education.

Sister Katarina Schuth is a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Rochester, Minn., and holds the Endowed Chair for the Social Scientific Study of Religion at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. She is an expert on Catholic American seminary education.