Community Life and Services
Worship
Daily worship is central to the life and purpose of the Divinity School. During the academic year, one hour is reserved each day for chapel worship and an accompanying coffee hour. The Divinity School community of students, faculty, staff, and administration is invited to gather in worship and to share one another’s company in the socializing that follows worship. In these ways, the community is reminded of the central purpose of theological education, as well as receiving training for practical ministry, and invited into the life of fellowship made possible when we gather in conversation and collegiality.
Chapel services are held in Marquand Chapel at 10:30 a.m. Monday through Friday, and coffee hour is held in the Common Room following each chapel service. These services are thirty minutes in length Monday through Thursday, and are extended to forty-five minutes on Friday when we celebrate the Eucharist.
The daily program of worship in Marquand Chapel is diverse and dynamic, and the ecumenical nature of the Divinity School is expressed in the constantly changing leadership and content of the services. In keeping with the esteemed heritage of preaching at Yale and the Divinity School, sermons are offered twice a week by faculty, students, staff, and invited guests from beyond the Divinity School campus. On other days the rich symbolic, artistic, and musical possibilities of the Christian tradition are explored and developed. The assembly’s song is supported by the Marquand Chapel Choir, the Marquand Gospel Choir, three student-organized vocal groups, many and various soloists, and occasional ensembles. Many avenues for musical leadership are open to the student body of the Divinity School by volunteering, as are many avenues of leadership through the spoken word, dance, and visual and other liturgical arts
The chapel program is under the direction of two faculty members—the dean of chapel and the director of chapel music—and is supported by a team that includes a liturgical coordinator, three student chapel ministers, a work-study worker, an administrator, two student organists/pianists, two student choir directors, and a professional gospel choir director.
In addition to the daily morning worship, there are several evening services, including the annual Advent Service and the Easter Rejoicing Service. Private and individual worship is provided for in the Nouwen Chapel (in the library building), as well as free moments in Marquand Chapel.
The worship life of the Divinity School is rich and varied beyond the walls of Marquand Chapel. The Berkeley Divinity School, through its St. Luke’s Chapel, provides worship on a daily basis and throughout the day. There are Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Holy Eucharist every day of the week, and the entire Divinity School community is invited to participate. The Lutheran students provide a service of Evening Prayer once a week in the Henri Nouwen prayer chapel in the library. Roman Catholic students provide weekly Mass in Marquand Chapel.
Other worship opportunities arise each year under individual and group initiatives, such as prayer groups organized by the Evangelical students, house church meetings organized by the Women’s Center, and occasional revival services organized by the Black Seminarians.
Yale University, through its Chaplain’s Office and organization of campus ministries known as Yale Religious Ministry, is rich in worship opportunities for all faith traditions. Yale University’s chaplain, Sharon Kugler, directs the staff of the Chaplain’s Office, which offers programs of worship and spiritual reflection throughout campus and in Battell Chapel. Yale Religious Ministry, with representatives from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Baha’i traditions, offers the Christian community a full program of worship opportunities with undergraduate and graduate students through the St. Thomas More Catholic Student Center, Luther House, Episcopal Church at Yale, Yale Christian Fellowship, and many other programs of campus ministry. The city of New Haven and the many towns surrounding it likewise offer numerous opportunities for worship through established congregations of most Christian denominations.
Libraries and Collections
Yale’s libraries have been developed over a period of three centuries. Throughout its history, the University has devoted a significant proportion of its resources to the building of collections that have an international reputation and that are matched by those of few other universities in the world.
The University Library consists of a central collection, the Sterling Memorial Library, seven school libraries, and forty-seven departmental and college libraries, containing over 12 million volumes. Approximately 160,000 volumes are added annually. These resources are available to the students of the Divinity School in common with other members of the University.
The Divinity Library was established in 1932 through the consolidation of the Day Historical Library of Foreign Missions, the Trowbridge Reference Library, and the Richard Sheldon Sneath Memorial Library of Religious Education. These collections have been augmented through purchases and gifts. The gifts include the libraries of Deans Charles R. Brown and Richard J. Wood, Professors Benjamin W. Bacon, Frank C. Porter, Douglas Clyde Macintosh, Henry Hallam Tweedy, Kenneth Scott Latourette, Carl H. Kraeling, Roland H. Bainton, Liston Pope, Johannes Hoekendijk, Henri Nouwen, Robert L. Calhoun, George Lindbeck, Randolph Crump Miller, James Dittes, and Marvin Pope; the files on religion in higher education collected by Clarence P. Shedd; the Edward Sylvester Smith Collection of Methodistica; and the John R. Mott Library. The library contains more than 500,000 volumes, 250,000 microforms, and 3,700 linear feet of manuscript and archival material.
The primary strength of the Divinity Library is in the history of missions, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox; Christian doctrine, historical and constructive; biblical literature; and church history. The mission collection is one of two such major collections to be found anywhere, and the section on doctrine is unusually complete. Subjects particularly well documented include Jansenism; American slavery and the Church; and the classical theologians, especially Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Schleiermacher, Harnack, and Barth.
The Special Collections Department is a rich source of primary research material. It includes the archives and papers of the World Christian Student Federation, the Student Volunteer Movement, the Student Division of the YMCA, John R. Mott, Henry Knox Sherrill, Horace Bushnell, Dwight L. Moody, the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, and the China Records Project. This department also houses many microtext collections of missionary archives, a large collection of historical sermons, the publications of numerous missionary and Third World ecclesiastical bodies, and the papers of many Yale scholars.
In addition to its extensive print and manuscript collections, the Divinity Library’s Henry H. Tweedy Reference and Resource program provides access to research materials in electronic formats. At the heart of the program is a number of public and staff computer workstations connected to locally mounted tools and databases, to public resources on the University’s campus-wide network, and to the Internet. Patrons may use the workstations to query a wide variety of bibliographic and full-text databases, and to communicate with scholars throughout the world. The Tweedy program also provides facilities for using audio, video, and multimedia tools for study and research. Inaugurated in 1992, the program is named in honor of Henry Hallam Tweedy, Professor of Practical Theology at the Divinity School from 1909 to 1937, and Acting Dean from 1934 to 1935.
Resources found elsewhere in the University bearing upon the work of the Divinity School include approximately 200,000 volumes classed as Religion in the Sterling Memorial Library and the Seeley G. Mudd Library. This collection contains a wealth of scholarly periodicals and publications of learned societies, the source material of the Protestant Reformation, Byzantine and Orthodox literature, early Americana, and older books acquired in the past. A primary collection of Mormonism is in the Collection of Western Americana, together with related materials. Other collections important to the Divinity School are Judaica; the American Oriental Society; and the Lowell Mason Collection of Hymnology in the School of Music Library. Early English church history imprints and the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters are found in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. There is an excellent collection on Cardinal John Henry Newman and the Tractarian Movement. Christian art is in the Arts Library; archaeology bearing on biblical studies and Christian origins is found in association with archaeology, ancient Near East, and classics. Resources to support the various area programs at Yale—East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Slavic and East European—are invaluable for the study of missions, non-Christian religions and culture, and world Christianity. The collections of the University illustrating the monuments and literature of Assyria and Babylonia are housed in Sterling Memorial Library.
The Yale University Art Gallery houses a collection of Palestinian pottery, acquired through the generosity of the late Mrs. Francis Wayland. Collections obtained through the excavations of the Yale–British Expedition to Gerasa, Transjordania, and the Yale–French Academy Expedition to Dura-Europos are also located in the Art Gallery.
Access to Resources
The Divinity Library offers a full range of bibliographic and technical services. During the term, the library is open Monday to Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 2 to 11 p.m. Daily messenger service is provided between the Divinity Library and other circulating collections at Yale.
Career Services
The Office of Career Services sponsors a variety of programs designed to help students clarify their vocational calls, learn job search skills and strategies, and develop the documents necessary to find appropriate employment after graduation. Programs are planned to meet the interests and needs of students planning ministries and careers in a wide variety of arenas.
Specific programs and services include, but are not limited to, unlimited individual career counseling, individual career assessment testing, corporate workshops on résumé and CV development with follow-up appointments to craft these documents individually, list-serves where vacancies are announced, access to a credential file system for storage of reference letters and transcripts, practice interviews, access to the career network as sponsored by the Association of Yale Alumni/ae, and production of sermon CDs for future pastors. Other programs are added when possible. The Career Services Office is a counseling office, not a placement office. Vacancies are advertised when known, but we do not sponsor on-campus recruiting.
All services are available to current students, and many to alumni/ae. For appointments or questions, students may contact divinity.careers@yale.edu or call 203.432.9485.
Student Book Supply
The Student Book Supply (SBS) has been serving the needs of Yale Divinity School for more than seventy years. It is committed to providing YDS, Yale, and the greater New Haven community with the best in current and classic theological scholarship. In addition to providing textbooks for Divinity School classes, the SBS stocks over 14,000 titles for practical ministry, academic study, professional service, and personal devotion. The bookstore also offers student supplies and insignia merchandise, and sponsors periodic book signings and author lectures.
Now professionally staffed, the SBS maintains the tradition of its earlier life as a student cooperative through its members’ discount program. The bookstore actively participates in the wider theological and religious bookselling communities through its membership in the Association of Theological Booksellers and the American Booksellers Association.
Campus Mailroom
The Yale Divinity School campus mailroom is located on the first floor of the Divinity School building, adjacent to the commuter lounge. The sole purpose of the mailroom is to receive and send YDS and University correspondence. The Divinity School is not responsible for receiving or sending personal mail and packages. All members of the community should use their primary home address for all personal mail and package deliveries.
Student Groups and Activities
Yale Divinity School students enjoy a rich community life in both the larger University and the Divinity School itself. As members of the Yale University graduate and professional student population, Divinity students are invited to participate in all appropriate student organizations and activities. Divinity students enjoy the nightly social life of the Gryphon, the graduate student pub located off York Street near the central University campus. Students are involved in leadership of graduate student activities and programs through the Graduate and Professional Student Senate. These venues for socializing and programming enable Divinity students to meet and work alongside students from the schools of Architecture, Art, Drama, Forestry & Environmental Studies, Law, Management, Medicine, Music, and Nursing, as well as the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
On the Divinity School campus, life outside the classroom centers on two student-led organizations, the Student Council and the Community Life Committee (CLC), both of which provide programming to enrich community life among students, faculty, and staff of the Divinity School. The daily schedule of classes works in concert with the goals of the student organizations by providing two class-free hours each day. The first hour, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., enables students to attend chapel worship and coffee hour, and the second hour, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., enables students to eat lunch together in the refectory and common room and to hold meetings and special events for the community.
The Student Council leadership is elected each spring term (and fall term, if needed). A president, vice president, and secretary give primary leadership to a council of students filling roles such as M.Div. representative, M.A.R. representative, Berkeley Divinity School representative, and Institute of Sacred Music representative, and filling committee representations for the Ministerial Formation Committee, Professional Studies Committee, Curriculum Committee, and the Committee on Spiritual Formation and the Practice of Faith. Through the Student Council, students have an active voice alongside faculty and administration in making decisions affecting the academic and community life of the Divinity School. In addition, the Student Council, in conjunction with the CLC, addresses the needs of the community as they arise each year.
The CLC, under the direction of two co-coordinators and a committee of students and faculty, oversees the work and ministry of student groups on campus. Student groups include the Black Seminarians, the Women’s Center, the Korean/Asian Association, the Committee on Social Justice, the Coalition (of Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Bisexual, and Transgendered persons), the Latina/o Association, the Evangelical Fellowship, the Outings Club, the Earth Care Committee, FADS (Fans and Athletes at Divinity School), two a cappella singing groups (“The Sacramental Winers” and “The Bible Belters”), the Catholic Students, the Lutheran Students, the Methodist Society, the Presbyterian/Reformed Students, the Baptist Student Fellowship, and the United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ Students. In addition, the CLC sponsors monthly nighttime socials called “The Fatted Cafe,” and three annual events: the Christmas Party, the Spring Fling dance, and the All-School Conference (a weeklong program of speakers, panel discussions, dinners, and social events focused on a common theme). The CLC also sponsors a series of community dinners during the academic year to provide an opportunity for socializing and the sharing of community concerns.
The Before the Fall Orientation for new students, the daily schedule of chapel and coffee hour and lunch, and student-run events throughout the academic year, all make community life at the Divinity School rich in opportunities for learning, socializing, serving, and giving leadership. New ideas for organizations and activities emerge each year as new students join the Divinity School and as new commitments and needs surface among returning students. While many activities are in place, each academic year is made unique by the particular gifts and passions of the student body that gathers in the Divinity School each year. Whether it is gathering students for dinner and discussion in the Slifka (Jewish student) Center, gathering a group to play basketball in the gym each Saturday morning, organizing events for Earth Day, or organizing a group to attend Yale football games, the richness of community life is enhanced by the energies and wishes of the individuals who join this community of faith and learning.
Choirs
The Marquand Chapel Choir and the Marquand Gospel Choir are active student organizations under the supervision of faculty members of the Institute of Sacred Music and the Yale Divinity School. The choirs offer anthems and support congregational singing at weekly services. Full rehearsals for the Marquand Chapel Choir are held every Sunday evening from 7 to 9 p.m. Members are selected in early September. Auditions are for voice placement only. The Gospel Choir requires no auditions and rehearses for two hours per week. Both choirs may be taken for credit (see REL 911 and 913).
Lectureships
The Roland Bainton Lectureship, inaugurated in 1988, represents the two foci of Professor Bainton’s life and work: church history and the church’s witness to peace and justice.
The Bartlett Lectureship was created in 1986 with a gift from the Reverend Robert M. Bartlett, B.D. 1924, and his wife, Sue Bartlett. The lectureship serves a twofold purpose. The first is to foster knowledge and appreciation of the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and their contribution to the religious, intellectual, and political life of America. The second is to encourage understanding of the history and culture of modern China. These two areas, which have commanded interest and attention over many decades, are treated on a rotating basis. In 1992, the Bartletts added to their gift and broadened the scope to include “Democracy, Human Rights, and World Peace.”
The Lyman Beecher Lectureship was founded in 1871 by a gift from Henry W. Sage, of Brooklyn, New York, as a memorial to the great divine whose name it bears, to sponsor an annual series of lectures on a topic appropriate to the work of the ministry.
The Francis X. Cheney Lectureship in Pastoral Theology was established by students and friends to encourage a minister’s proper focus in pastoral care. The lectureship is open to scholars in all disciplines who seek to bring their expertise to bear on this subject. This lecture is given every second year at Berkeley Divinity School, alternately with the Louis Wetherbee Pitt Lectureship.
The Loring Sabin Ensign Lectureship in Contemporary Interpretation of Religious Issues was founded in 1994 by church members and other friends to honor Loring S. Ensign, M.Div. 1951, for his twenty-five years of service as pastor of the Southport Congregational Church (Connecticut).
The Hoskins Visitorship was established in 1967 in memory of Fred Hoskins, B.D. 1932, by gifts from the churches which he served and from individual friends. The Hoskins Visitor is a Christian leader invited to the School to deal particularly with issues that relate to the reform and renewal of the church. This visitorship is given every second year, alternating with the Luccock Visitorship.
The Kavanagh Lecture, presented by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, is named for the late Professor Emeritus of Liturgics Aidan J. Kavanagh O.S.B., and given in conjunction with Convocation Week at Yale Divinity School.
The Luccock Visitorship was established in 1963 in memory of Halford E. Luccock, who served as professor in the Divinity School from 1928 to 1953, by gifts from alumni and other friends. The Luccock Visitor, usually a parish minister, is invited to spend several days at the School. This visitorship is given every second year, alternating with the Hoskins Visitorship.
The Parks-King Lectureship commemorates two civil rights activists, Mrs. Rosa Parks and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was established in 1983 through the efforts of the Yale Black Seminarians. The lecture brings the contributions of African American scholars, social theorists, pastors, and social activists to the Divinity School and to the larger New Haven community.
The Louis Wetherbee Pitt Lectureship was established as a memorial to Dr. Pitt and his wife, Blanche Parmelee Pitt, by his family to provide for lectures by distinguished preachers and world Christians. This lecture is given every second year at Berkeley Divinity School, alternating with the Francis X. Cheney Lectureship.
The Shaffer Lectureship was established in 1929 by a gift from John C. Shaffer of Chicago, Illinois, as a memorial to his son, Kent Shaffer, Ph.D. 1907, to sponsor lectures on the life, character, and teachings of Jesus. This series is given every second year, alternating with the Nathaniel W. Taylor lecture series.
The Margaret Lindquist Sorensen Lectureship was established in 1978 by a gift from her son, Dr. Andrew A. Sorensen, B.D. 1962, to provide an annual series of lectures on politics and ethics.
The Nathaniel W. Taylor Lectureship in Theology was created in 1902 by a gift from Rebecca Taylor Hatch of Brooklyn, New York, in memory of her father, who was Dwight Professor of Didactic Theology from 1822 to 1858. A series of lectures on some theme in theology is given every second year, alternating with the Shaffer Lecture series.
The Dwight H. Terry Lectureship was established in 1905 by a gift from Dwight H. Terry of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and in 1923 inaugurated lectures on “Religion in the Light of Science and Philosophy.” It is administered by the Yale Office of the Secretary.
