---
title: "Yale Divinity School"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_Divinity_School"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:34:27.882601+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Leadership ==
Gregory Sterling, a New Testament scholar and Church of Christ pastor, has been the dean of the divinity school since 2012, succeeding New Testament scholar Harold W. Attridge, who returned to teaching as a Sterling Professor upon completing two five-year terms as dean. The leaders of the affiliated seminaries are Andrew McGowan, Dean and President of Berkeley Divinity School, and Sarah Drummond, Founding Dean of Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School. Organist Martin Jean is director of the Institute of Sacred Music.

=== Deans of Yale Divinity School ===

== Campus ==

When the department was organized as a school in 1869, it was moved to a campus across from the northwest corner of the New Haven Green composed of East Divinity Hall (1869), Marquand Chapel (1871), West Divinity Hall (1871), and the Trowbridge Library (1881). The buildings, designed by Richard Morris Hunt, were demolished under the residential college plan and replaced by Calhoun College, now known as Grace Hopper College.
In 1929, the trustees of the estate of lawyer John William Sterling agreed that a portion of his bequest to Yale would be used to build a new campus for the Divinity School. The Sterling Divinity Quadrangle, completed in 1932, is a Georgian-style complex built at the top of Prospect Hill. It was designed by Delano & Aldrich and modeled in part on the University of Virginia.

A $49-million renovation of Sterling Divinity Quadrangle was completed in 2003. Sterling Divinity Quadrangle contains academic buildings, Marquand Chapel, and graduate student housing for YDS students.
Yale Divinity School is currently planning the construction of the Living Village, a zero-waste, sustainable living community that will house 155 YDS students.

== Notable alumni ==

=== Government and Politics ===
John D. Baldwin (B.D. 1834), U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 8th congressional district
Lois Capps  (M.A.R. 1964), U.S. Representative for California's 24th congressional district
Walter Holden Capps (M.A.R. 1963; Ph.D. 1965), U.S. Representative for California's 22nd congressional district
William Sloane Coffin (B.D. 1956), Central Intelligence Agency officer
Chris Coons (M.A.R. 1992), U.S. Senator from Delaware
John Danforth (M.Div. 1963), U.S. Senator from Missouri
Walter Fauntroy (B.D. 1958), U.S. Representative for the District of Columbia
Robert Bernard Hall (B.D. 1835), U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 1st congressional district
Gary Hart (B.D. 1961), U.S. Senator from Colorado
Guy Vander Jagt (B.D. 1955), U.S. Representative for Michigan's 9th congressional district
James A. Joseph (B.D. 1963), U.S. Ambassador to South Africa
Sen Katayama (Attended), founder of the Japanese Communist Party
James T. Laney (B.D. 1954), U.S. Ambassador to South Korea
Ernest W. Lefever (B.D. 1945), foreign affairs expert and founder of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Chang Sang (M.Div. 1970), Prime Minister of South Korea
David E. Price (B.D. 1964), U.S. Representative for North Carolina's 4th congressional district

=== Academia ===
Kate Bowler (M.A.R. 2005), academic and writer
Donald Eric Capps (B.D. 1963; S.T.M. 1965), scholar of Pastoral Theology
Harvey Cox (B.D. 1955), theologian and Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School
Raymond Culver, (B.D. 1920), President of Shimer College
David F. Ford (S.T.M.), Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus at the University of Cambridge
Milton Gaither (M.A.R. 1996), historian of American education
Serene Jones (M.Div. 1985), President of Union Theological Seminary
Candida Moss (M.A.R. 2002), Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham
Reinhold Niebuhr (B.D. 1914, M.A. 1915), philosopher and public intellectual
Douglas Oldenburg (S.T.M. 1961), President Emeritus of Columbia Theological Seminary
George Rupp (B.D. 1967), 18th President of Columbia University
John Silber (Attended 1947-1948), 7th President of Boston University
Rena Karefa-Smart (B.D. 1945), first Black woman to graduate from Yale Divinity School
Rufus W. Stimson (B.D., 1897), Professor of English and President of the University of Connecticut
Krista Tippett (M.Div. 1994), National Humanities Medal and Peabody Award winner
John W. Traphagan (M.A.R. 1986), Professor of Religious Studies and Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin

=== Religious Leadership ===
William Ragsdale Cannon (B.D. 1940; Ph.D. 1942), Bishop of the United Methodist Church
Roy Clyde Clark (B.D. 1944), Bishop of the United Methodist Church
Michael Curry (M.Div. 1978), 27th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
Paul Vernon Galloway (B.D. 1929), Bishop of The Methodist Church
Allen Kannapell (M.Div. 1997), Suffragan Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Great Lakes
James Massa (M.A.R. 1985), Auxiliary Bishop of Brooklyn

=== Other ===
Diogenes Allen (B.D. 1959)
Ian Barbour (B.D. 1956)
Gregory A. Boyd (M.Div. 1982)
Will D. Campbell (B.D. 1952)
Orishatukeh Faduma (B.D. 1894, graduate study 1895)
Frederick William Chapman (A.M. 1832), Congregational minister, educator, and genealogist
Zebulon Crocker
Tom Vaughn (Doctorate in theology), jazz musician and Episcopal priest
Leroy Gilbert (S.T.M. 1979)
Lisa Grabarek, Baptist preacher and teacher
Stanley Hauerwas (B.D. 1965)
Richard B. Hays (M.Div. 1977)
Sallie McFague (B.D. 1959)
Otis Moss III (M.Div. 1995), Pastor of Trinity Church, Chicago
Richard T. Nolan (M.A. 1967)
Ashley Null (M.Div., S.T.M.), Anglican theologian
William H. Poteat (B.D. 1944)
Clark V. Poling (1936)
Peter L. Pond, human rights activist and philanthropist.
Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. (attended 1895–1896)
V.C. Samuel (PhD. 1957), Theologian and Historian.
Ron Sider
Amos Alonzo Stagg
Barbara Brown Taylor (M.Div. 1976)
Roy M. Terry (B.D. 1942)
R. A. Torrey (B.D. 1878)
Glenn M. Wagner (M.Div. 1978)
Chester Wickwire (B.D. 1946)
Parker T. Williamson (M.Phil.)
William Willimon (M.Div. 1971)

== Notable past professors ==

=== Former faculty: 20th–21st centuries ===
Roland Bainton
Brevard Childs
Rebecca Chopp
Adela Yarbro Collins, 2000–2015
Jerome Davis
Margaret Farley
Hans Wilhelm Frei
Serene Jones
David Kelsey
Kenneth Scott Latourette
George Lindbeck
Sallie McFague
Douglas Clyde Macintosh
Abraham Malherbe
Reinhold Niebuhr
H. Richard Niebuhr
Henri Nouwen, 1971–1981
Liston Pope (Dean)
Letty M. Russell (1974–2001)
Lamin Sanneh
Emilie Townes
Denys Turner
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Henry Burt Wright (1877-1923)

=== Former faculty: 19th century ===
Lyman Beecher
George Park Fisher

== Current faculty ==
Harold W. Attridge
William Barber II
Teresa Berger
John J. Collins
Bruce Gordon
Margaret A. Farley
Margot Elsbeth Fassler
John E. Hare
Jennifer A. Herdt
Martin Jean
Willie James Jennings
David Kelsey
Andrew McGowan
Teresa Morgan
Sally M. Promey
Bryan D. Spinks
Harry S. Stout
Kathryn Tanner
Linn Tonstad
Jacqueline Vayntrub
Miroslav Volf
Tisa Wenger
Christian Wiman
Adela Yarbro Collins

== See also ==
General Theological Seminary, a separate New Haven institution now located in New York City

== References ==

== External links ==
Yale Divinity School website
Berkeley Divinity School at Yale
Andover Newton Seminary at Yale