Distance Education Archives - United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities

June 9, 2025

At United, Kateri Boucher Is Inspired to Chase Her Childhood Dreams

Kateri Boucher, who is pursuing an MDiv in Church Leadership, felt a call to ministry very early. “I was three when I told my mom I wanted to be a priest,” she recalls. She adds, “I would preach homilies and make [my mom] write them down.” Raised in Upstate New York, Kateri’s family attended a progressive Catholic church untethered from Roman Catholic strictures. Watching a woman priest serve communion sparked her pronouncement. Years later, after attending a liberal arts college, Kateri jumped at a chance to work on an “urban agriculture” project in Detroit. The community she found through the Catholic Worker and an Episcopal church rekindled her sense of calling, so she moved there. Now, at United, Kateri is making her dreams a reality. Searching for a Seminary About four years ago, Kateri began searching for a seminary. She researched a few schools, but realized she didn’t want to leave Detroit. She had just been hired at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and hoped to continue that work. Sarah Holst (’20) recommended United. The more she learned about United, the more it seemed like the best choice. “I wouldn’t have to sacrifice what I [wanted] to do an online program,” she remembers thinking, “and it would allow me to stay rooted in Detroit and…work at St. Peter’s.” Transformational Teachers During her first semester at United, Kateri took two classes with Rev. Dr. Andrew Packman, assistant professor of Theological Ethics and Formation. Class assignments and interactions, Kateri notes, really opened her mind to ways in which theology has evolved. “It is such a gift,” she declares, “to get to study with someone for whom teaching is so clearly a vocational call. I’ve rarely interacted with someone who has such a sharp mind and such a generous spirit.” Dr. Jennifer Maidrand—visiting assistant professor of Bible, Culture, and Interpretation, supported by the Louisville Institute—taught courses that Kateri took recently. A guest poet in the Hebrew Bible class was a “really cool” highlight. And, in the Bible and Palestine-Israel class, Kateri asserts that Dr. Maidraid “led us so gracefully through really challenging conversations throughout the semester [and] basically every…assignment for this class is something applicable to the real world.” Rev. Dr. DeWayne Davis, Kateri’s preaching professor, created another memorable experience. “His passion [for preaching],” she quips, “was palpable from miles away over a Zoom screen! He really brought it to life and held us in a beautiful way.” Through the class, Kateri notes that she learned strategies for telling “compelling stories.” She can use that at St. Peter’s, when she preaches each month. Distance Learning Because she wanted to balance her part-time work at St. Peter’s, service projects, and seminary, Kateri sincerely appreciates United’s distance learning program. “I remember telling people in my first semester that it’s clear that this school didn’t just start doing online classes during COVID;” they’ve had years “honing the art of hybrid classes.” She’s also made a lot of seminary friends. It’s so easy, Kateri shares, to message someone and say, “Hey, do you want to connect out of class?” The chat feature in Zoom also makes the in-class learning process more interactive. Formulating a Future Kateri describes another support from United, the Dayton Scholarship, as a “total blessing and game changer.” The funding, she reveals, “has enabled me to keep working … at St. Peter’s and participate in the church’s service outreach programs.” She’s hoping to add a second MA, made possible by the scholarship. As she looks ahead, Kateri knows changes will come. She’s started ordination and will leave St. Peter’s for a new call. In the United community, she sees “a real beauty, that we are scattered like seeds around the country and the world,” asking key questions. Still, she admits, “it was nourishing to come to United for Symposium Week; it “helped me to feel more rooted in the community.” In sum, Kateri exclaims, “I just love United so much! I’m so grateful it exists.”

Student Rev. Alicia Reese Creatively Mixes Ministry with Improv

Rev. Alicia Reese has followed the pull of two great loves: theatre and ministry. “I spent most of my life in theatre; I think I started when I was seven,” she recalls. As she grew older, Alicia also felt “a strong call toward ministry,” but there were no women pastors in her church setting. “I never saw,” she reflects, “how that call to ministry could be lived out.” Through high school and college, Alicia threw herself into theatre. At a small Christian school in Florida, she met a theatre director who believed the arts and church could go together. He let her take over the theatre ministry troupe—“a sketch comedy-ish group that used Christian themes and scripture,” Alicia explains. In her 20s, after moving to Chicago and working in theatre full-time, Alicia experienced another strong nudge toward ministry. This time, she earned an MA in Theological Studies, but had the sinking feeling that she might have to give up theatre. A minister at her church, who recognized her unique gifts, encouraged her to pursue an MDiv. One of Alicia’s professors at North Park Theological Seminary introduced her to a prison education program at a correctional facility in Joliet. She embraced this new challenge and wanted to help those who were incarcerated share their stories. “So I pulled out my theatre bag of tricks,” Alicia shares, and considered using improv. Finding United The success Alicia found using improv to get incarcerated students to re-vision their stories inspired her to go back to school for a DMin through which she could explore the “connection between spiritual formation and improv.” Why United? “From the moment I started interacting with United,” Alicia remarks, “I felt that deep connection between the arts and theology and ministry.” After meeting with Dr. Jennifer Awes Freeman, she was hooked. Jennifer helped Alicia create an independent study that involved taking classes at The Second City in Chicago, “a life-changing” experience. Alicia credits United’s “openness to exploration,” the ability to have both “a classroom and a laboratory,” and the needs-based scholarship she received as keys to her success. In addition, “every professor has made a stamp on my work along the way,” and interactions with other students have been “just as fruitful and formative.” Real Life Applications For Dean Roberts’ class, Alicia “designed a whole Lenten series of spiritual practices that use improv” for her congregation. For example, one week she asked congregants to practice failure using the “failure bow”—an exuberant, joyous admission of failure that tricks the brain into getting more comfortable with and learning from failure. More recently, she created a similar series for Advent. When the children’s minister asked her to devise something for the children’s pageant, he and Alicia designed an intergenerational service based on joy and improv. Toward the end of the service, Alicia used an improv game called “Slide Show” to help the children tell the story of Jesus’ birth. For the first slide, Alicia shared a piece of the birth narrative, and the kids acted out the scene on stage. On alternate slides, the children acted out another piece of the story, and Alicia had to explain what they were doing. Along the way, the kids added new characters and became very engaged in the storytelling. The pageant, Alicia exclaims, was “probably one of the most joyful, wonderful experiences I’ve had in a faith community, ever.” It was also a reminder of how the DMin work is spilling over into her ministry. This is “a full-circle moment,” Alicia declares. The gift of “bringing art back into my life through my ministry work has felt like I’m living into the fullness of who God really called me to be now.”

Zoom Classroom Best Practices

As classrooms and faith communities move to online events, courses, and gatherings, we know there's a big learning curve for presenters and participants. At United, Zoom technology is built in to our instructional model. Over the years, we've learned some best practices for online presentations that we want to share with you as you make the shift from in-person gatherings and teaching. (more…)