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Yale Divinity School
409 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06515
Divinity tomorrow: The mission ahead
The Campaign for Yale Divinity School, also known as Divinity Tomorrow, is a comprehensive five-year effort to equip the Divinity School with the tools necessary for ecumenical theological training in the 21 st century, a time of great opportunity and great challenge. In collaboration with Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, Divinity Tomorrow has set a $38 million fundraising goal to support major advances in several key areas of critical need, including, among others, financial aid for students; curriculum development and the practice of Christian ministry; and further improvements to Sterling Divinity Quadrangle.
Helping students who want to help others
Increased financial aid is the top priority of the Divinity Tomorrow campaign. Approximately two-thirds of YDS students must borrow money to fund their seminary education. Given the relatively low salaries earned by graduates committed to service in the church and non-profit world, this can be a crushing blow financially–or can even prevent the Divinity School from recruiting students with the best academic qualifications and demonstrated commitments to lives of service to others.
The campaign goal is to reduce reliance on borrowing by increasing the proportion of tuition covered by scholarship from its current level of 65 percent to at least 75 percent.
At present, all funds generated through the Divinity School Alumni Fund are targeted for current use financial aid. That will not change, but the campaign objective is to create new endowments that will support special named scholarships directed toward international students, supervised ministries internship scholarships, and merit scholarships that would cover full financial need and provide a modest stipend.
Over the past decade, the percentage of international students at Yale Divinity School, both degree candidates and exchange students, has roughly doubled. Increasing financial aid for these students will greatly enhance the School's ability to attract a broader range of talented and dedicated students, particularly from the two-thirds world, where Christianity has been growing rapidly. Almost without exception, these students return to their home countries after graduation to become leaders in church, colleges and seminaries.
Connecting the dots: From academic study to practice of ministry
The biblical and theological heritage of Christianity finds focus in engagement with church and culture, an ongoing interaction that is essential to the Christian message. During 2006-07 Yale Divinity School strengthened its position in this area by upgrading junior positions in homiletics and pastoral care to more senior positions, but several additional faculty positions are contemplated to further strengthen the School's offerings in this area. One position would focus directly on the relationship between practical disciplines and the more traditional "academic" theology; a second would focus on the empirical study of religious congregations; and a third would be devoted to the practice of ministry.
The Divinity School's Supervised Ministries Program provides an engaged experience that is essential to pastoral formation, positioned at the intersection of academic study and the practice of ministry. Under the program, students are linked to internships that offer professional experience and encourage imagination, enthusiasm, sensitivity, and practical know-how.
All Master of Divinity students are required to have at least one internship, but most choose to do more. To give students the possibility of placement in sites with fewer financial resources, the Divinity School has guaranteed all students with financial need a supervised ministry scholarship. A Campaign goal is to endow an intern scholarship fund.
Teaching and research fueled by the creative spirit
Because innovation and creativity are at the heart of the best thinking about challenging issues, the Divinity School is committed to initiatives of research and experimental curricular development that will ensure that a Yale Divinity School education remains vital at a time of dramatically shifting dynamics in church and world.
In the new century, Yale Divinity School will sustain a robust program of support for research initiatives in critical areas such as understanding the Christian tradition in light of contemporary scientific knowledge; how Christianity relates to the other great religious traditions of the world; and, how it can contribute to the solution of contemporary problems facing all humanity.
Another goal is to establish a special endowment for curricular development aimed at encouraging innovative faculty initiatives and "out of the box" approaches to teaching that will keep the Divinity School curriculum on the cutting edge of theological education in the United States.
Yale Divinity School's highly regarded centers for research have significantly enhanced the School's outreach capabilities in recent years, and sustaining programs in this area is an important campaign objective.
The rapidly growing Yale Center for Faith and Culture has engaged several particularly important projects that address the challenges of religious life in the 21 st century: studies on sustaining pastoral excellence and determining how pastors learn through practice of the ministry; an outreach program for business and professional people who want to connect their religious beliefs with the world of work; and a program on Christian-Muslim reconciliation. The Center has organized a number of conferences that have attracted participants from the United States and abroad.
A new Yale Divinity School undertaking is the Initiative on Religion and Politics, an interdisciplinary effort aimed at fostering thoughtful activism, enriching scholarly discourse, and deepening public conversation on the place of religion in public life, both nationally and internationally.
A campaign goal is to create endowments for basic research support for the work of the centers, including support for infrastructure and seed money to facilitate new initiatives.
Sterling Divinity Quadrangle: A place to prepare leaders for church and world
The Sterling Divinity Quadrangle adaptive reuse project, completed in 2003, has provided a wonderful new "habitat for Divinity" on Prospect Street. There remain, however, two critical facilities needs that must be addressed in the decade ahead.
The mothballed "back buildings" (former Common Room, Refectory, Gymnasium/Institute of Sacred Music) will eventually provide space needed for the development of the centers and institutes mentioned above, as well as expansion space for faculty and community life at YDS and its partners on the Quad -- the Institute of Sacred Music and Berkeley Divinity School. The University has undertaken restoration of the exterior of these sections of Sterling Divinity Quadrangle at no cost to the Divinity School. It is now up to the Divinity School to provide for the restoration or adaptive reuse of the interiors.
The Canner Street apartments, built in the 1950s, are severely run down and in need of complete renovation or replacement. The school is committed not only to keeping student housing available but also to ensuring that student housing, in whatever form, contributes substantially to the sense of community that is remembered so vividly by many alumni.
Rendering unto YDS...
Yale Divinity School has changed dramatically over the past several decades. But in mission the Divinity School steadfastly maintains its historic emphasis on preparing leaders for service to church and world, fusing faith and intellect in ways that achieve a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Since its founding, Yale Divinity School has held a position of preeminence in the world of theological education, producing religious leaders of character, passion and insight. Please join us in supporting Yale Divinity School at this moment of kairos—a time of great opportunity and challenge.