NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A landmark $10 million grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. to Vanderbilt University Divinity School will be used to produce a generation of professors better prepared to teach students called to the ministry.
The grant by the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment is the largest ever received by Vanderbilt University Divinity School and marks the beginning of a move by the school and the Graduate Department of Religion to address a nationwide shortage of practical theology professors and the need for young scholars in theological education to address their fields to the practice of ministry.
“Vanderbilt faculty and staff worked long and hard to formulate this path-breaking new program,” said Craig Dykstra, the Lilly Endowment vice president for religion. “They studied all the relevant literature, surveyed and interviewed scores of church leaders and practicing ministers, and reflected deeply on how to be a faculty of scholar-teachers whose work can significantly strengthen the church’s ministry.
“Through this project, Vanderbilt will play a crucial role in reshaping how future seminary professors are trained and have a powerful impact on the education of new generations of ministers.”
Vanderbilt will use the funding to create the Program in Theology and Practice, which will produce more and better teachers for theological schools.
“Graduate education in the United States is geared to the development of research knowledge and skills in isolated fields,” said James Hudnut-Beumler, dean of Vanderbilt University Divinity School and the Anne Potter Wilson Distinguished Professor of American Religious History. “While this has produced tremendous advances in scientific knowledge, there’s a need for developing scholars to think through how their knowledge will be put to use. For future theological faculty, that means thinking more about the practice of ministry.”
Ministers face a wide variety of challenges when they begin their careers. People who have little or no history with organized religion, addicts among the homeless who repeatedly seek money but don’t seek to change, the joy of teaching people to reach across generations, and congregations sharply divided over politics or modes of worship are some of the challenges that await new clergy.
The Program in Theology and Practice is designed to do a better job preparing future professors to help clergy respond wisely to these and other unforeseen circumstances that can make or break their careers.
“The ultimate beneficiaries will be the congregations and members of religious communities whose leaders are shaped by a program that has no parallel in higher education today,” Hudnut-Beumler said.
“This is a momentous event in the history of Vanderbilt Divinity School, and also a great challenge. The Lilly Endowment is placing a lot of trust here, and we in response plan to produce a generation of mentors for the
ministry.”
Plans call for the first class in the new program to begin study in the fall of 2006. The program will add up to a year to the Ph.D. curriculum for students who participate.
Goals for the program include attracting 50 new graduate students in teaching for the ministry and involving 25 divinity school faculty members and 20 area clergy in an innovative curriculum. Vanderbilt will partner with at least
eight seminaries in the region as part of the program.
Founded in 1937, the Lilly Endowment is a private family foundation that supports its founders’ wishes by supporting the causes of religion, community development and education.
The Vanderbilt University Divinity School is one of the original schools of Vanderbilt University, which was founded in 1873. It is one of only five university-based nondenominational divinity schools in the United States. |
