Wartburg College will enhance its Wartburg West program in Denver through a groundbreaking new partnership with Saint John’s Episcopal Cathedral.

Wartburg, which is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has operated Wartburg West since 1985, enrolling nearly 900 students. The new agreement with Saint John’s Cathedral will significantly upgrade housing, classroom facilities and offerings for the urban semester-long program combining academic courses with for-credit internships and community engagement.

Dr. Dan Kittle, assistant to the president for strategic initiatives, said Wartburg will lease a 36-unit apartment building across the street from Saint John’s Cathedral with individual studio apartments for students, classrooms, offices and meeting space.

Since 1999, Wartburg has owned a nine-unit apartment building south of downtown that limited student participants to 20 per term. The building lacked classrooms and parking, which were leased from a church several blocks away.

“Our focus at Wartburg West has been on experiential education to prepare students for careers that could well take them into major metropolitan areas,” Kittle said. “But now we’re looking at a lot of different pieces that will enable Wartburg West to grow from a program to a center of activities and, possibly in the long-term vision of the college, a campus.”

The other pieces could attract more students to Wartburg from Denver, where 603 of the college’s alumni currently live. 

“We’re thinking differently about Wartburg West as an asset that also could enrich the Waverly campus,” Kittle said, “perhaps with a ‘bridge program’ where students from high schools in the Denver area enroll there and later come to Wartburg. Maybe we can have more for-credit experiences in Denver that aren’t just for our students, like our high school leadership institute.”

“There are so many opportunities, so many possibilities,” said Wartburg President Darrel Colson. “Wartburg has always been good at experiential learning, really trying to integrate what students do in the classroom with what they do in the world with their hands and with their hearts.”

He added, “We don’t know where we will be 25 years from now, but the possibilities are endless.”|

The partnership between Wartburg, a Lutheran college, and St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral will be unique.

“The ELCA and the Episcopal Church have what is called a ‘full communion relationship,’” said the Rev. Sherman Hicks, a member of the Wartburg Board of Regents and director of ELCA multicultural ministries. “The two churches have started congregations and campus ministries together, and we also exchange clergy. But this is the first time that a college of the ELCA has been in any kind of a relationship with an entity of the Episcopal Church.”

Both institutions emphasize community engagement in their missions. Wartburg has been internationally recognized for its initiatives in service learning, while Saint John’s has been actively engaged in its community.

We’re looking forward very much to this partnership,” said Peter Eaton, dean of Saint John’s Cathedral. “We’re looking forward to being a catalyst for a range of experiences we hope will be unique.”

“The cathedral is very much dedicated to serving the very urban neighborhood in which it is located,” said Nelson Bock, who has taught at Wartburg West since 1991 with his wife, Bonita. “That fits in with the mission of Wartburg West to ‘nurture and challenge students for lives of leadership and service in the urban context.’ For us to have a partner like that, which is a highly regarded institution in the heart of the city, is a real boost.”

“Saint John’s is such a good partner,” Kittle said, “because it is seen as the community cathedral of downtown Denver. For example, after 9/11 the community was looking for a place to do an interfaith service and decided that Saint John’s would be the most appropriate place.”

“They want to reach out to the various communities in Denver and partner in ways that spread their mission and ours as well,” he added.

Kittle said the new partnership would give Wartburg’s Admissions Office a base for recruitment in a metropolitan area where graduation rates are expected to increase by 20 percent over the next year.