School Notes: Yale Divinity School
May/June 2012

New Testament scholar next YDS dean

President Richard Levin has named Gregory E. Sterling the next dean of Yale Divinity School, effective August 1. Sterling, a New Testament scholar whose work focuses on the writings of Philo of Alexandria, is currently dean of the Graduate School and professor of theology at Notre Dame. He will succeed Dean Harold Attridge, who first met Sterling in 1990 when both were on faculty at Notre Dame. In a different kind of Sterling appointment, Levin named Dean Attridge to a Sterling professorship, the highest honor Yale can bestow upon a member of the faculty. (For a Yale Alumni Magazine report on Sterling’s appointment, see “New Div School Dean is a Preacher-Scholar”.)

Ministerial studies assessment program comes of age

ive years ago, the seeds of a program designed to integrate the academic, spiritual, and vocational aspects of education at Yale Divinity School were planted in conversations between Dean Harold Attridge and Assistant Dean William Goettler. The ministerial studies assessment program is now an integral part of each and every master of divinity student’s life at YDS. Foundational elements of the program are the reflective essay written by all MDiv students at the end of every semester and the consultation that takes place during the spring semester of each MDiv student’s second year—a 90-minute meeting that involves intense advising, deep reflection, and direct feedback on a student’s academic, spiritual, and vocational trajectories. One sign of the maturation of the YDS program is the attention it has gained from other theological schools. In early November, representatives from a number of other schools, including Harvard Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary, gathered on Sterling Divinity Quadrangle to learn more about the YDS initiative and to share their own approaches.