Vanderbilt Divinity SchoolLocation: Nashville, TN
Vanderbilt University Divinity School is able to offer current and prospective students a distinctive combination of opportunities. VUDS has a long history of connecting progressive social views with the practice of leadership in ministry. Today’s VUDS graduate is a prophetic voice in traditional as well as non-traditional ministries. |
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SERVICE-BASED SCHOLARSHIPS
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Below is a sampling of awards given to Vanderbilt Divinity students with preference given to students based on their service and justice commitments:
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DEGREE PROGRAMS INTEGRATING FAITH & SERVICE
VDS currently offers several certificate and co-curricular programs that reach across campus and into the broader community:
- The Cal Turner Program in Moral Leadership and the Professions is an interdisciplinary program that brings together students (“fellows”) from the professional schools across Vanderbilt (Divinity, Nursing, Law, Medicine, Education, and Management) in a year-long fellowship program. The Turner Fellows look at a specific problem within the community that need to be addressed.
- The Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture program focuses on helping students understand and harness the arts for religious understanding and reflection. This program seeks to engage the arts community in Nashville and beyond in dialogue and theological reflection.
- The Kelly Miller Smith Institute on Black Church Studies partners with the African American church community to reflect on the liberating elements of African American religion and to assist in defining a future for oppressed peoples, shaped by the prophetic vision of God’s justice on earth. The Institute is a vehicle for scholarship and research, the education of clergy and lay leaders, and the promotion of dialogue between African American theologians and church leaders.
- The Carpenter Program in Religion Gender and Sexuality holds seminars and conferences annually to foster dialogue around sexuality and the church, gender roles, and the church and homosexuality.
- VUDS also offers a dual Divinity/Law degree (M.Div./M.T.S. and J.D.), as well as a dual Divinity/Peabody degree within the Community Development and Action Program (M.Div./M.T.S. and M.Ed.)
ENGAGEMENT ON CAMPUS
FIELD EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES
Vanderbilt Divinity School reaches deep within the city and surrounding communities for its Field Education placements. Last semester, Field Education contexts included:
- The Nashville Food Project
- Tennesseans Against the Death Penalty
- Justice for Our Neighbors
- Conexión Americas
- Scarritt Bennett Center
- Magdalene House
- DeBerry Correctional Institute
- On occasion, the Divinity School supports students financially to enable site placements with agencies serving economically disadvantaged and marginalized populations.
ISSUE INTEGRATED ACADEMIC COURSES
Because VUDS seeks to integrate community engagement in many of its courses, the list below is only a sample of current course offerings and is not exhaustive:
Several VDS courses explicitly engage the broader community:
Riverbend Maximum Security Prison: Each semester, at least one course is taught in conjunction with Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville. In a one-to-one ratio, students and inmates learn side by side with world-renowned scholars Amy-Jill Levine, Doug Knight, and Bruce Morrill.
Local and Global Immersion: Every other May, a team of students and faculty travel to Arizona and Mexico as part of a course entitled “Traversing our National Wound: Immigration and the United States and Mexico Border.” Another course, entitled “The Church and Urban Community” spends the summer exploring the implications of the urban environment for the institutional life of the church, and the role that congregations can play in the urban community.
In addition to the border trip and the urban immersion class, VDS students have traveled to Namibia, Nicaragua, Vietnam and Thailand for immersion study in local communities addressing issues of poverty and global economic justice, structural oppressions including race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, and environmental devastation.
- Religion and Social Movements (Melissa Snarr)
- Race, Religion, and Protest Music (Juan Floyd-Thomas)
- Theology, Economics, and Labor (Joerg Rieger)
- Religion and War in an Age of Terror (Melissa Snarr)
- Pastoral Care and Community Justice (Phillis Sheppard)
- Mission of the Church in the World (Joe Pennel)
- Ministry, Voice, and Vocation: Civil Rights, MLK, Jr., and Preaching (Dale Andrews)
- Prisons, Poverty and Congregations (Dan Joranko)
- Religious Leadership and Liberation Praxis (Forrest Harris)
- The Foundations of Ethical Leadership (Graham Reside)
- Social Action in the City (Dan Joranko)
- Pastoral Care and Global Capitalism (Bruce Rogers-Vaughn)
- New Religious Movements (Juan M. Floyd-Thomas)
Several VDS courses explicitly engage the broader community:
Riverbend Maximum Security Prison: Each semester, at least one course is taught in conjunction with Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville. In a one-to-one ratio, students and inmates learn side by side with world-renowned scholars Amy-Jill Levine, Doug Knight, and Bruce Morrill.
Local and Global Immersion: Every other May, a team of students and faculty travel to Arizona and Mexico as part of a course entitled “Traversing our National Wound: Immigration and the United States and Mexico Border.” Another course, entitled “The Church and Urban Community” spends the summer exploring the implications of the urban environment for the institutional life of the church, and the role that congregations can play in the urban community.
In addition to the border trip and the urban immersion class, VDS students have traveled to Namibia, Nicaragua, Vietnam and Thailand for immersion study in local communities addressing issues of poverty and global economic justice, structural oppressions including race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, and environmental devastation.
ALUMNI PROFILES
The Rev. Becca Stevens, MDiv ’90 - Founder of Magdalene House & Thistle Farms
Becca Stevens is an author, speaker, social entrepreneur, founder and president of Thistle Farms. She has been featured in the New York Times, on ABC World News, NPR, PBS, and CNN. In 2011, the White House named Becca a “Champion of Change”. She was featured in the PBS documentary, “A Path Appears,” named Humanitarian of the Year by the Small Business Council of America as well as the TJ Martell Foundation, and inducted into the Tennessee Women’s Hall of Fame. She has been conferred honorary doctorates from The University of the South, Sewanee and General Theological Seminary, New York. Her newest book is, Letters from the Farm: A Simple Path for a Deeper Spiritual Life.
Learn more about Thistle Farms.
Becca Stevens is an author, speaker, social entrepreneur, founder and president of Thistle Farms. She has been featured in the New York Times, on ABC World News, NPR, PBS, and CNN. In 2011, the White House named Becca a “Champion of Change”. She was featured in the PBS documentary, “A Path Appears,” named Humanitarian of the Year by the Small Business Council of America as well as the TJ Martell Foundation, and inducted into the Tennessee Women’s Hall of Fame. She has been conferred honorary doctorates from The University of the South, Sewanee and General Theological Seminary, New York. Her newest book is, Letters from the Farm: A Simple Path for a Deeper Spiritual Life.
Learn more about Thistle Farms.
The Rev. Jennifer Bailey, MDiv ’14 - Faith Matters Network
Named one of 15 Faith Leaders to Watch by the Center for American Progress, Rev. Jennifer Bailey is an ordained minister, public theologian, and emerging national leader in multifaith movement for justice. She is the Founding Executive Director of the Faith Matters Network, a new interfaith community equipping faith leaders to challenge structural inequality in their communities. Rev. Bailey is an ordained itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Named one of 15 Faith Leaders to Watch by the Center for American Progress, Rev. Jennifer Bailey is an ordained minister, public theologian, and emerging national leader in multifaith movement for justice. She is the Founding Executive Director of the Faith Matters Network, a new interfaith community equipping faith leaders to challenge structural inequality in their communities. Rev. Bailey is an ordained itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Asher Kolieboi, MDiv ’15 - Johns Hopkins University Assistant Chaplain & Trans* Faith Leader
Asher Kolieboi hails from Saint Louis, Missouri, by way of Monrovia, Liberia. A longtime LGBTQ and racial justice community organizer, Asher currently serves as the Assistant University Chaplain at Johns Hopkins University. Asher co-organized the 2010 Soulforce Equality Ride, a two-month bus tour of young adults ages 18-28 who traveled to Christian colleges and universities to discuss the intersections of LGBTQ identities and faith. He then went on to serve as the LGBTQ Coordinator and Assistant Director of the Oberlin College Multicultural Resource Center. In 2011 Asher launched (un)heard: Transmasculine People of Color Speak! An ethnographic audio-visual installation about the experiences of transmasculine people of color. Asher is currently a candidate for ordained ministry in the United Church of Christ, and recently completed his Master of Divinity at Vanderbilt University.
Asher Kolieboi hails from Saint Louis, Missouri, by way of Monrovia, Liberia. A longtime LGBTQ and racial justice community organizer, Asher currently serves as the Assistant University Chaplain at Johns Hopkins University. Asher co-organized the 2010 Soulforce Equality Ride, a two-month bus tour of young adults ages 18-28 who traveled to Christian colleges and universities to discuss the intersections of LGBTQ identities and faith. He then went on to serve as the LGBTQ Coordinator and Assistant Director of the Oberlin College Multicultural Resource Center. In 2011 Asher launched (un)heard: Transmasculine People of Color Speak! An ethnographic audio-visual installation about the experiences of transmasculine people of color. Asher is currently a candidate for ordained ministry in the United Church of Christ, and recently completed his Master of Divinity at Vanderbilt University.
Life in NashvilleLocated in Nashville, Tennessee, and situated within a major research university, Vanderbilt University Divinity School is able to offer current and prospective students a distinctive combination of opportunities:
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