The strength of a school resides, above all else, in its faculty. Classes of students come and go, but a faculty remains to shape the character of an institution, to enliven its teaching, and to forge its relation to the University and to scholarly disciplines. The ratio of faculty members to students at the Divinity School is an enviable one to ten. While introductory foundational courses may have as many as fifty Divinity students per class, the average class size is approximately ten students so that many courses are taught in a seminar format.

The faculty members of the Divinity School are nationally and internationally known for their writing and teaching. Among the faculty, there are twelve religious traditions represented, including branches of Judaism, mainline Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism. Divinity School faculty members are regularly invited to be guest lecturers and visiting professors at other universities and theological schools and have been awarded prizes by the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature for their publications and research. Faculty members serve in leadership positions in the Association of Theological Schools and have been recognized by foundations for their national religious leadership.

Within the university, the Divinity School faculty members are known for their prominent roles in the Faculty Senate and for their campus-wide work on equal access, computing, public policy, and tenure and review. Their efforts to achieve high ideals in our common life are witnessed in the political and social life of the larger community as well.

Faculty members have won more than thirty competitive fellowships open to scholars in all fields, and they have traveled abroad numerous times for extensive periods of research or service. They have appeared in nationally televised series on religious issues and been invited for consultation by religious leaders in other countries.

The Divinity School faculty is one of the most published in the University and in theological education. Over the past fifteen years faculty members have published more then fifty major books: seven of those have been translated into other languages, seven others have been the subject of major discussions at national and international meetings, and seven others are in extended printings. Scholarly journals regularly contain feature articles by professors at Vanderbilt.

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Photography by Donna Jones Bailey, Gerald Holly, and Robin Hood.
Created: June 04, 2000  Last Updated: June 20, 2000
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