Dr. Michael Collender
Dr. Michael Collender has over 25 years of experience teaching in Classical Christian Education. He is passionate about learning how wisdom can help us to thrive in the 21st Century. He has taught at VSA since 2009. While at VSA, he has created and still teaches Film and Worldview (since 2009), Rhetoric II (since 2010), Psychology (since 2013) and Economics (since 2014). He teaches summer Omnibus and both the live and the self-paced versions of Rhetoric I and Omnibus III Secondary. He edited A Rhetoric of Love: Volume One, VSA's Rhetoric I textbook and is the author of A Rhetoric of Love: Volume Two, the text for Rhetoric II. He has given a TEDx Talk on rhetoric, and before coming to VSA, Dr. Collender was chair of the Rhetoric Department at The Oaks Academy in Spokane, WA. He taught philosophy and leadership studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA, for over a decade. He has also been a Visiting Fellow of the Philosophy Institute of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. An alumnus of the Los Angeles Film Studies Center, he worked in script development and in production in the capacities of Assistant Director and Second Unit Director. He came to faith in Christ at an early age, being raised in a Christian home, and is now a professor at Redemption Seminary, where he trains future pastors in biblical studies, theology and leadership. He leads The Bridge, a young adult fellowship at Harvest Church in Billings, MT, where he serves as a pastor. He has earned two doctorates, the first in Philosophy from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, working on the problem of modeling complex systems in AI, neuroscience, and economics, and the second in Theology at the University of South Africa studying the relationship between biblical wisdom and empirical psychology. When he’s not teaching, grading, or writing, Dr. Collender enjoys ballroom dancing and martial arts and holds a blackbelt in Aikido. He loves teaching at VSA because mentoring VSA’s incredible, well-read, ambitious students brings him great joy. He and his wife Jennifer (who also teaches at VSA) live in beautiful Montana and have six children.
