St. Davids, PA: Eastern University is pleased to announce the official relocation of Palmer Theological Seminary to the St. Davids campus this summer. In October 2015, the Palmer Theological Seminary Site Selection Committee recommended and the Board of Trustees approved a “Hub-and-Spoke” approach to positioning the Seminary for continued significant service to the church. In that scenario, Palmer’s “hub” has been relocated to Eastern University’s St. Davids campus with a spoke currently existing in West Virginia, another being developed in Philadelphia, and the third consisting of residency/online programs serving Latin America and other areas of the United States being developed as well.
The transition of the “hub” to the St. Davids campus was directed by a relocation task force that included staff, faculty and student representation, with two major points of focus: the library relocation and the physical space relocation in all of its complexities. The Seminary library (DeBois) collection has been moved from Valley Forge storage to Warner Library and the integration into the stacks has been almost fully completed. The result of the combination of the Seminary and Warner holdings is an impressive theological collection of 62,000 volumes plus reference works.
A space utilization study served to provide the information necessary to plan for relocating offices to the St. Davids campus in the context of a comprehensive campus master planning initiative. Campus tours were conducted with students, staff and faculty to acquaint them with classroom, library, and student life facilities. Seminary classes and the Openseminary, West Virginia and Doctor of Ministry residencies have been held fully on campus since the beginning of June, and all of the faculty, staff, and administration offices have just finished their relocation. Most Palmer faculty are currently residing on the second floor of McInnis Hall, where Palmer’s reception area will also be located, and the bulk of classes scheduled for the fall will take place in McInnis and the nearby Harold Howard Center. A dedicatory University Chapel service will take place on Wednesday, September 14, to welcome the Palmer community to its new St. Davids home, and we invite all to participate.
To learn more about Palmer Theological Seminary and to read more news, visit palmerseminary.edu.
