Max Finberg is former director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He formerly headed the Alliance to End Hunger.

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.

The Rev. James McDonald is president of San Francisco Theological Seminary, the only Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seminary in the western United States. SFTS announced in 2011 that it would close its Southern California campus, saving the school $450,000 per year.

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.

The Rev. Karen Dalton is director of field education at Claremont School of Theology, a United Methodist school in Los Angeles.

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.