2018-2019 Master of Arts in Pastoral & Spiritual Care (MAPSC)

The Master of Arts in Pastoral and Spiritual Care is a professional master's degree for students who are specializing in pastoral and spiritual care within religious communities or other organizations like hospitals, hospice, and military organizations.

These are the requirements for students who matriculated during the 2018-2019 school year. Degree requirements for previous years can be found at the bottom of the Master's Student Handbook main page. Students can track their own individual degree progress through the degree audit on my.iliff and by consulting their advisors.

The curriculum is designed to meet the needs of those preparing for the specialized vocation of pastoral and spiritual care. Students take courses in pastoral and spiritual care that implement an intercultural approach to spiritual care, integrating contextual understandings of religious truth with a social justice orientation. Clinical pastoral education provides intense group learning and supervision of the practice of pastoral and spiritual care in clinical settings.

Students also take courses in the core curriculum. Each area has a thematic focus, and courses within each area cohere in directing students and their teacher to think more critically about their assumptions and to develop theological perspectives necessary for becoming responsible pastoral and spiritual caregivers in a changing world. The personal and professional courses ground students in an understanding of their vocation, and help them integrate their personal theologies of spiritual care with public theologies using a social justice orientation.

The MAPSC degree requires at least 80 quarter credits (or 40 quarter credits and an MDiv degree or its equivalent from an accredited seminary) with a cumulative grade point average of 2.0 or better. 

These include: 

• 32 credits from required courses 
• 16 credits from required pastoral and spiritual care courses 
• 12 credits in Personal and Professional Formation (PPF), C&F, and the Masters Recital 
• At least 20 credits from other courses 

All requirements for the degree must be completed within seven calendar years from the date of the first course taken in the program. All required courses must be completed with a grade of C or better. Students must meet the requirements as specified in the Catalog and the Master‘s Student Handbook (of their year of matriculation) to graduate. 

First Year Interdisciplinary Course (4 credits): This course is team-taught and will introduce students to terminology, reading of primary texts and how to write academic papers as well as expose them to the complexity and significance of theological reflection. The course must be taken within the student's first 40 credit hours.  

Core Courses (28 credits)

Comparative Religious Traditions (CR): One CR course from the list below, for a total of 4 credits:

IST 2000 Religions in the World - This is the preferred course for the MAPSC degree program.

IST 2001 Intro to Islam

IST 2086 Religion, Space, and Place

IST 2102 Intro to Hinduism

IST 2131 Religion and Violence

IST 2155 Black Religious Denver

IST 3000 Native American Cultures and Religious Traditions

IST 3001 Islam, Gender, Sexuality

IST 3010 Pilgrimage in Comparative Perspective

IST 3110 Asceticism and Monasticism

IST 3### Judaism, Gender, and Religion

IST 3025 Comparative Mysticism

IST 3038 Buddhist Philosophy

IST 3049 Sufism

IST 3053 Religion and Film

Bible/Contextual Analysis (BI), 4 credits - one of the courses from the list below:

IST 2003 Intro to Hebrew Bible

IST 2004 Intro to New Testament

Social and Ethical Analysis (SE), 4 credits - one required course:

IST 2005 Ethical Analysis & Advocacy

Historical Development & Expressions of Religious Traditions (HI), 4 credits - one required course:

IST 2500 - Intro to the History of Christianity

Constructive/Systematic Theology (CT), 4credits - one required course:

IST 2510 - Intro to Theology

Religious Practices (PR), 8 credits -  two required courses:

IST 2005 Pastoral Theology and Care

IST 2080 Practical Theology

Pastoral and Spiritual Care Courses (16 credits)

Personal and Professional Formation (14 credits)―Required courses:

Vocation and Orientation (2 credits)

Identity, Power, and Difference (2 credits)

CPE (8 credits) + CPE Integration Praxis (2 credits)

Consultation and Formation to be completed during the first year of classes.

Masters Recital: To be completed during the Spring term of the final year

Other courses (22 credits)