What's new in the new year: YDS enters 2026-27
Prof. Ó Tuama speaks at Opening Convocation in Marquand Chapel. Photo by Moriah Felder.
Yale Divinity School has begun its 205th year, receiving a select incoming class of 112 students as well as several new faculty and staff members.
Dean Greg Sterling welcomed the entering class to the YDS community at Opening Convocation in Marquand Chapel on September 1. This year’s cohort joins 173 returning students for a total student population of 285.
Among the first-year students, 17% are from 12 countries outside of North America, including China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, South Korea, and Venezuela. Thirty-eight percent identify as male, 59% as female, and three percent as non-binary.
The new students range in age from 21 to 72, with an average age of 31. Nearly half already hold graduate degrees, including at least 16 with a doctorate.
Unusually, the incoming class splits evenly between students pursuing the M.Div. and M.A.R. degrees, with 53 in each program. The remaining six are admitted for the S.T.M. This is the second year in which entering M.Div. students will participate in the cohort model of the revised M.Div. program.
Newly appointed faculty member Pádraig Ó Tuama spoke on “A Theology of the Imagination” at Opening Convocation.
“The hope,” said Ó Tuama, “is we might be able to participate in imagining something that doesn’t exist yet. This, as far as I am concerned, is the task of an education in the humanities.”
New faculty
Prof. Ó Tuama is one of three full-time faculty members joining YDS this year. An acclaimed Irish poet, theologian, and peacebuilder, he serves as Professor in the Practice of Spirituality and Poetry.
Jeffrey Allen Murdock and Gabrielle Thomas also start their time at YDS as the new school year begins. Prof. Murdock, a leading scholar and practitioner of Black sacred music, is Professor in the Practice of Sacred Music at YDS and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, as well as Associate Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Music and the Black Church.
Prof. Thomas is the new dean and president of Berkeley Divinity School and Professor in the Practice of Early Christian, Anglican and Theological Studies. Prof. Thomas was most recently a tenured associate professor at Candler School of Theology, but she is not a stranger to YDS, where she previously taught in 2019 to 2021. She will be installed as the 15th Dean of Berkeley Divinity School during Convocation and Reunion on Wednesday, October 7 in Marquand Chapel.
YDS dean to step down at year’s end
The 2026-27 academic year marks the start of a significant transition: it will be the fifteenth and last year that Greg Sterling will serve as dean of YDS.
Read the message from President McInnis and Provost Strobel
Among the many initiatives that Sterling has led at YDS is the school’s commitment to affordability. In 2015, Sterling set the goal of providing full tuition to all YDS students with demonstrated need. YDS acheived that in 2022, and now provides both full tuition and some living expenses for all qualifying students.
Rather than step back from that commitment in response to reduced resources following the 8% endowment tax which took effect this July, YDS limited the number of accepted students in the 2026-27 school year in order to ensure that the school remains financially accessible. 2026 continues a three-year trend of record-high application numbers, with 690 applicants and an acceptance rate of 25%.
Sterling chose to serve a third five-year term as dean of YDS in 2022 in part in order to see the Living Village project through to completion. The living-building residential complex, situated immeditately beside the Sterling Divinity Quadrangle, opened its doors to students last August, and all 47 student units are currently occupied.
Read more about the Living Village
“Part of its location is about recovering the living learning element, recovering a residential community,” says Joel Lohr, who joined YDS this year as Sustainability Specialist and Living Village Building Manager. “The Living Village is a big part of the vision the dean has for bringing us back together, to live and learn together.”
This is the first year in which incoming students and their partners will join returning “Villagers.” Lohr says that his hope for student residents is twofold: that they will experience the blessing of living in “a state-of-the-art building that is both beautiful and healthy, and environmentally not just sustainable, but regenerative,” and that students will carry this experience into their future communities.
“They can talk about this, and not just in theory,” Lohr says. “They can be able to say to their congregations, or their colleagues, or their clients, ‘I actually lived in a building that was regenerative, that gave back more than it takes. It is possible.’ To me, that’s a real moment of hope for students.”
New staff
Lohr, who comes to YDS after serving as president of Hartford International University for Religion and Peace, is one of 10 YDS staff members who are either just beginning their appointments or entering their first full academic year.
Registrar Morganna Payne now begins her first full year. She joined the YDS community from Gateway Community College in New Haven, where she served as Guided Pathways Advisor. Also beginning his first full academic year in the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid is Admissions Officer Nathan Peace, a 2025 M.Div. YDS graduate.
Josh Bird is YDS’s new Director of Strategic Communications. Prior to coming to YDS, Bird was Director of Communications for the University of Alabama School of Law.
Adam Ployd, who already served as Lecturer in Divinity Studies, now also assumes the role of Associate Dean for Spiritual Formation.
Justin Tyler Dickerson fills the position of Chapel Liturgy and Operations Manager for Marquand Chapel. Pauline Courteille serves as Assistant Director of Leadership Programs and External Relations at Berkeley Divinity School, and Elliot Smith is Program Administrator for Student Engagement at the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy.
New to the Divinity Library is Ashley Cale, Archives Assistant, and William Potter, Librarian for Computational Theology.