Professional Degree Learning Goals (MDiv, MASJE, MAPSC)

Students completing the MDiv, MASJE, or MAPSC degree program should be able to:

Comparative Religious Traditions (CR):demonstrate basic awareness of a range of religious traditions and an emerging capacity to engage in comparative analysis between traditions around a particular topic.

Bible/Contextual Analysis (BI): demonstrate an informed understanding of sacred texts as historically- situated; utilize various methodologies for responsible interpretation of these texts to contemporary audiences.

Social/Ethical Analysis (SE): identify and critically evaluate the symbolic systems, power structures, ideologies, values, and religious meanings at play in events and interactions, institutional structures, ethical judgments, and living communities, and articulate and enact a vision for increased social justice in these contexts.

Historical Development/ Expressions of Religious Traditions (HI): demonstrate awareness of religious traditions as historically-situated movements that interacted and changed in relationship to their surrounding cultures and subcultures over time, resulting in various expressions located within and influenced by social structures and institutions, historical events, and ethnic and cultural ideologies.

Constructive/Systematic Theology (CT): critically engage historical and contemporary theological expressions of religious traditions and articulate one's own constructive theological position in relation to contemporary events and/or situations.

Theology and Religious Practices (PR): engage in analysis of contemporary religious traditions and institutions in order to assess, design, and perform meaningful leadership practices with sensitivity to contextual realities and relationships.

Personal and Professional Formation (PPF): develop strategies for spiritual formation and self-care, demonstrate an awareness of the importance of social location for self-understanding and professional presence, and enact self-aware and collaborative leadership within a specific vocational context.

MAPSC adds: Demonstrate a complex interdisciplinary understanding of the human person in social context, develop and demonstrate an intercultural approach to pastoral and spiritual care, and demonstrate personal and professional competencies needed by effective caregivers.

MASJE adds: Demonstrate a complex interdisciplinary understanding of historical and contemporary social change strategies and movements, develop and practice an inclusive and collaborative approach to social change leadership, and demonstrate the cultural capacity and organizational skills necessary for civic agency and efficacy in diverse social, political, and educational institutions.

MDiv adds: Demonstrate a complex interdisciplinary understanding of the breadth of theological disciplines as well as the depth within those disciplines. Develop and embody a comprehensive range of ministerial responsibilities, skills, and capacities – intellectual and affective, individual and corporate, ecclesial and public – that inform and support a life of religious leadership. 

Academic Degree Learning Goals (MTS)

MTS: After successfully completing the Master of Theological Studies Degree, graduates will be able to:

• Within a broader awareness of the academic study of religion, articulate the complexities emergent in the interdisciplinary study of religious traditions.
• Formulate a viable research question that puts the student into conversation with historic and contemporary thinkers in the study of religion and that fosters transformative possibilities for humanity and the world.
• Identify theological resources that would broaden and deepen their thinking about these questions.
• Organize their response to a research question, both in written and oral format, in such a way as to establish themselves as a competent public voice within the interdisciplinary study of religion.

DMin Degree Learning Goals

• Engage in an ethical, substantive, and culturally relevant research process that identifies and investigates an area in ministerial context that calls for prophetic leadership.
• Develop theoretical knowledge, analytical skills, and contextual awareness that enable students to engage in, contribute to, and advance the study and practice of prophetic leadership.
• Cultivate disciplines and tools necessary for lifelong theological reflection in the practice of ministry.
• Refine competencies and self-awareness in the art of prophetic leadership within the contexts of culturally diverse congregations, denominations, and communities of intersectional identities and institutional cultures.

Joint Doctoral Program Learning Goals (Ph.D.)

• Students will contribute original scholarship to the study of religion
• Students will demonstrate knowledge of a variety of disciplinary perspectives that they will engage critically in interdisciplinary conversation and scholarship
• Students will demonstrate competence in the specific field within the study of religion in which they plan to establish their professional identity
• Students will understand theories and principles of teaching religion