ORLANDO — Asbury Theological Seminary’s 75th anniversary celebration Nov. 17 at the Canterbury Retreat Center in Orlando also marked a celebration of new beginnings.

At a press conference earlier that afternoon Dr. Steven J. Harper, vice president and dean of the seminary’s new Orlando campus, announced the purchase of a building that will house the college’s new Florida campus.

The three-year-old building is located on Valencia College Lane near the East-West Expressway and Greenway Intersection in southeast Orlando. According to Harper, the former Prudential Health Care Facility is “state of the art.” It has 38,000 square feet and 280 parking spaces on the 5.9-acre site. The purchase price is $3.1 million. The college’s main campus is in Wilmore, Ky., with nearly 1,200 students enrolled.

“The 75th anniversary occurs at the same time we are catching a fresh vision,” Harper said at the conference. “Orlando will not be a clone of Wilmore…the mission is urban, multicultural and multiracial in a way our Asbury Seminary in Kentucky is not.”

Harper says the initial vision for the Orlando campus is to provide theological education for the commuter, second-career student. The Orlando area was chosen because college officials felt the need to deal more extensively with urban, ethnic and intercultural concerns. The highly accessible, growing Orlando market was also a factor.

Officials hope to own the building before Christmas and begin offering master of divinity degree core courses and continuing education for laity and clergy by September 1999.

According to Harper, the location is a temporary site. A permanent one has not been chosen, and depending on student need, the campus may offer residential facilities in the future.

Harper also announced that Dr. Paul Chilcote has been chosen as the first faculty member for the Orlando campus. Chilcote will be professor of historical theology and Wesleyan studies beginning July 1999.

Consultation with the Florida United Methodist Conference concerning a Florida campus began several years before Harper’s appointment as vice president and dean of the campus last July. Plans to pursue a full-program campus in Orlando were announced December 1997.

Nearly 80 people attended the seminary’s anniversary celebration in Orlando. At the same time, about 250 attended a similar celebration at Asbury’s campus in Wilmore. The two groups were able to interact during comments by keynote speaker General Paul Rader, world general of the Salvation Army, and an evening worship service through a live teleconference.

Asbury Theological Seminary was founded in 1923 as an interdenominational graduate school of theology, mission and evangelism. Since then, it has prepared more than 7,000 students for worldwide Christian leadership in the Wesleyan tradition.

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 © 1998 Florida United Methodist Review Online