M.Div. revision strengthens YDS commitment to ministerial education while responding to changed landscape

Yale Divinity School has completed a major revision of its signature degree—the Master of Divinity (M.Div.)—strengthening the School’s historic commitment to professional education in ministry while substantially updating it for the middle decades of the 21st century.

Unanimously approved by the faculty in January, the revised M.Div. program includes a new cohort model for entering students and sets forth a restructured learning design for required coursework. The M.Div. cohorts will do some of their course work together during the first three semesters of study while also having more room for electives, creating space for some concentrations where students may earn a certificate, such as chaplaincy.

The three-year M.Div. professional degree is one of three degree programs offered by the Divinity School. The others are the two-year Master of Arts in Religion (M.A.R.) and the Master of Sacred Theology (S.T.M.), which students can complete over one or two years.

Dean Greg Sterling noted that the M.Div. revisions were initiated in response to the changing religious landscape in America and around the world, and to students’ evolving educational needs and interests. At the same time, it maintains the historic mission of the School that stretches back to Yale’s founding in 1701 as a training ground for ministers and public servants.

“The revised M.Div. program will provide students with the robust theological training and preparation for professional ministry that Yale Divinity School has always provided,” Sterling said, “but with an eye to the cultural context of the 21st century. Our world is changing and changing rapidly; the revised program will better equip students for a public witness that is very much needed in an increasingly chaotic and fractured world.”

William Goettler, Associate Dean for Ministerial and Social Leadership and Co-Chair of the team working on the M.Div. redesign (along with Senior Associate Dean Joyce Mercer), said the revised program draws the faculty into deeper relationship with students—especially during the first three semesters, when all M.Div. students will meet weekly for an integrative seminar with a single professor and a consistent cohort.

The new cohort model, he said, ensures that students will “think broadly about the nature of theological education, and specifically about how the coursework they are engaging has meaning in their lives and their scholarship.”

“In the restructured program, half the course of study is set in place for the first two years,” Goettler added. “That still leaves room for two electives a term for the first four terms, and all electives in the final year of study.”

The previously four-course series introducing students to the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament will be reduced to one semester for each. Students will then have space to pick additional work in Bible courses of their own choosing.

Similarly, specific courses in Worship and in Historical Studies will be part of every student’s first year of M.Div. studies. In the second year, students will be required to take introductory courses in Theology, Pastoral Theology, and Ethics, plus a new required course in Public Policy and Public Theology that grows from the work of Bishop William Barber, who joined the YDS faculty two years ago.

Other distributional requirements remain, including at least one course in Global Christianity, Non-Christian Religion, Preaching/Public Address, Religion and the Arts, and Leadership or Religious Education. In addition to continuing the current six-credit internship requirement, the new program allows students to take 15 credits of entirely elective work, compared with the previous model of 12 elective credits.

Recognizing the need for more nimble curricular changes in the future—the revision is the first in many decades—the committee crafted a new process for assessment of the program and means to further revise the M.Div. curriculum in the future in response to students’ and society’s changing needs and to the evolving expertise of the faculty.

“With the cohort model’s integrative seminars, the new M.Div. curriculum creates space for intention and faculty-facilitated integration across core courses,” said task force Co-Chair Joyce Mercer, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Horace Bushnell Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Care. “With its opportunities for pursuing an optional certificate in the later semesters, students can choose to concentrate their electives into specializations such as chaplaincy, public theology and public policy, or religion and ecology. It’s an exciting combination of the M.Div.’s historically strong ‘generalist’ base and the chance for students to follow their vocational yearnings and develop their own specific interests.”

In addition to the two cochairs, serving on the task force were:

• Joel Baden, Professor of Hebrew Bible
• Sarah Drummond, Dean of Andover Newton Seminary at YDS and Professor of the Practice
• Bruce Gordon, Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History
• Martin Jean, Director of the Institute of Sacred Music, Professor in the Practice of Sacred Music, and Professor of Organ
• Willie Jennings, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies
• Andrew McGowan, Dean and President of Berkeley Divinity School and McFaddin Professor of Anglican Studies and Pastoral Theology
• John Pittard, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion
• Chloë Starr, Professor of Asian Christianity and Theology

The revised M.Div. program takes effect next academic year. Continuing students will study in accordance with the current program.

M.Div Curricular Design Comparison

Current Requirements

New Design Requirements