School Notes: Yale Divinity School
January/February 2020

The Year of Women: YDS contributions to the 50/150 initiative

Yale Divinity School is honoring the women of YDS, past and present, as part of the university-wide celebration of the 50th anniversary of women entering Yale College and the 150th year of women first enrolling as graduate students. At Opening Convocation, YDS dean Greg Sterling announced that in honor of the 50/150 initiative every endowed lecture at YDS this year will be delivered by a woman. Teresa Morgan of the University of Oxford opened the slate with her Bainton Lecture on September 16. In addition, the Fall issue of the Divinity School’s magazine, Reflections, is devoted to articles by and about the women of YDS, and at October’s Convocation and Reunions all four major alumni awards were given to women.

Early Christianity scholar to join YDS

Acclaimed New Testament and early Christianity scholar Teresa Morgan has accepted an appointment to the YDS faculty beginning in 2022. She will come to Yale from the University of Oxford, where she is professor of Graeco-Roman history and Nancy Bissell Turpin Fellow and tutor at Oriel College. Morgan becomes the inaugural holder of the newly established McDonald Agape Professorship in New Testament and Early Christianity, funded through a gift from the McDonald Agape Foundation.

Jonathan Edwards conference

Nearly 150 Jonathan Edwards scholars from around the globe converged at YDS October 2–4 for an international conference on Edwards (1720BA), examining the growing influence of the great eighteenth-century theologian. Dozens of students packed into the Divinity School’s Old Refectory alongside conference registrants for the two keynote lectures by religion historians George Marsden and Mark Noll. The conference was supported by a $75,000 grant from the McDonald Agape Foundation.