Hartford Seminary Launches Three New Programs: Interreligious Studies, International Peacebuilding, Chaplaincy

Since its founding in 1834, reinvention has been a hallmark of Hartford Seminary. After a year of strategic planning to redefine the future for the interreligious graduate school, Hartford Seminary’s board of trustees adopted a new Strategic Vision in March of 2020 which included plans to launch three new programs beginning in the 2021 Fall semester.

The three new 36-credit programs include a Master of Arts in Interreligious Studies, Master of Arts in Chaplaincy and a Master of Arts in International Peacebuilding, each of which have been accredited by The Association of Theological Studies in the United States and Canada and the New England Commission on Higher Education.

Each of the new programs were built upon previous graduate certificate or degree programs but have been redesigned to better represent the diverse perspectives among students and professors of Hartford Seminary.

“Our students come from all over the world, and every one of them is unique in their own way. But what they all have in common is a spark of spirituality and a curiosity and interest in other people and other religions,” says Rev Dr. David D. Grafton, Academic Dean at the Hartford Seminary. “The diverse group of students in our classrooms come from all walks of life and varying religious pursuits but are joined together by their shared desire to deepen their own faith and understand the faiths of others.”

The new MA in Interreligious Studies is an academic graduate degree program which engages students in the study of relations between religions, lived religious traditions and the foundational concepts and methods of interreligious studies.  Students in the program can choose to specialize in Interreligious Studies, Islamic Studies or Ministerial Studies, and complete a final capstone project or thesis.

An MA in International Peacebuilding is a 12-month intensive residential program which develops the student’s capacity to build healthy inter-and-intra religious relationships through a combination of service learning, traditional course work, experiential courses and project-based learning.

A cohort of students are selected for the program from various locations around the world with a history of religious unrest and disagreement. The students accepted into the program spend a full academic year at Hartford Seminary working towards a professional master’s degree learning conflict intervention, peace and violence in scripture, project planning, restorative justice, trauma awareness, the history and theology of Abrahamic faiths, among various other topics.

During the 12-month academic year, the final three months (June through August) are spent planning a relationship-building capstone project to be implemented in each student’s home country or community, which completes their degree.

The third new program, the MA in Chaplaincy program, which expands on the Seminary’s history-making Islamic Chaplaincy Program, is a professional degree program that provides students of various religious orientations who wish to serve as chaplains with a rigorous academic program focused on the integration of spiritual caregiving theory and practice. 

For an entire semester, students in the program are assigned a field placement in the area in which they hope to serve as a chaplain.  That can include, but is not limited to, hospitals, jails, universities, and local non-profit organizations.

The MA in Chaplaincy and MA in Interreligious Studies programs can be completed in person at Hartford Seminary or entirely online from anywhere in the world. On average, Hartford Seminary enrolls roughly 130 students in their graduate programs, and applications for the Spring semester are currently being accepted online.

The non-denominational religious graduate school is highly regarded for their engaging multi-faith environment. The diverse perspectives, religions and backgrounds of their students and professors is the very essence of what makes Hartford Seminary unique from other graduate schools in religious and theological studies.

“The immersive classroom experience at Hartford Seminary equips students to be conversant and sensitive to the reality of a multi-face world and navigate it with humility, skill and sensitivity,” says Grafton.

The Hartford Seminary, led by President Dr. Joel N. Lohr, is a free-standing graduate school of religion with a primary focus on chaplaincy, peacebuilding and interreligious dialogue. The transformative classroom experience offered to students of Hartford Seminary prepares students to be leaders in their community. Home to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and The Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian Relations, the Hartford Seminary strengthens religious communities through research and education.

“There are so many ways our contemporary culture falls short and points to our brokenness. We are polarized politically, we are often suspicious of our neighbors and do not talk to each other, and technology, despite its many promises and benefits, can exacerbate our alienation. At Hartford Seminary we are doing something different. We foster reconciliation through dialogue and hospitality, we take seriously our relationships with each other, and we seek to use technology to build, rather than break down, our connections with each other and creation,” says Lohr.

Hartford Seminary is also committed to providing leadership education through the Black Ministries Program, which provides a national model for building the leadership, training and preaching skills of laity and clergy in the urban church, and The Women’s Leadership Institute, an experience-based certificate program which strengthens students leadership skills while exploring a feminist perspective in religion and society. 

To learn more about Hartford Seminary and their new graduate programs, or to learn more about their research and leadership education, visit their website, www.hartsem.edu.

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This article was reported and written by Lauren Malenchini, a CT by the Numbers intern who attends Quinnipiac University.  More of her work can be seen at https://malenchinilauren.wixsite.com/my-site