Revised MDiv Curriculum Receives Board Approval

Lost in the shuffle of the 2024 Year in Review and highlights from of our January gathered session in New York was a major milestone in CDSP’s hybrid shift process: At the December meeting of the Board of Trustees, our new MDiv curriculum was officially approved.

For those who may have missed our introduction of the curriculum, this occasion felt like a good time to revisit the piece.

Sneak Peek: Revised MDiv curriculum taking shape

By Dr. Stephen Fowl, the Rev. Mark Chung Hearn, PhD, and the Rev. John Dwyer

Editor’s note: This piece was originally published June 2024 in Crossings and has been edited to incorporate recent updates.

Since the announcement of our hybrid shift, our faculty have been hard at work revising the MDiv curriculum and supporting program at CDSP. This article is intended to serve as a kind of guided tour of where that work is heading.  

As you probably know, we’ve chosen to narrow our focus to CDSP’s signature strengths and invest much more heavily in our students and the local church. Why? Quite simply, because we want to form the most responsive and faithful priests we can. Our hybrid students prepare to face current and future ministry realities in the local communities they are already serving faithfully.  

We can’t remove every barrier to thriving as a faith leader in challenging times. But we can give them the best possible chance to begin their years of ordained ministry in a healthy and high-impact way.  

We begin with four years of hybrid coursework, advising, and community-based spiritual formation culminating in the MDiv degree. All students accepted into the program receive a full-tuition scholarship, have meals provided during multiple yearly onsite sessions, and have their travel to those sessions reimbursed.  

But the program doesn’t end at graduation. CDSP works with each student and their bishop to design a two-year curacy position in one or more Episcopal settings. We pay for students’ salaries and benefits in the form of a grant to the diocese from Trinity Church Wall Street. Cohorts will remain connected via continuing programming for professional development and mutual support. 

Candidate criteria & student outcomes

We’re designing this curriculum with very specific student outcomes in mind. As Dr. Hearn shared previously, they represent the faithful discernment and planning of our faculty. We’re identifying knowledge, skills, and sensibilities that today’s Episcopal priests need in order for them, and their communities, to thrive. 

• Facility in Foundational Disciplines: Students will have a facility with scripture, doctrine, liturgy, moral theology, historical theology, and practical theology. They will critically probe the resources of the Christian tradition to deepen their love of God, and to inspire their communities to do likewise.   
• Contextual Understanding: Our students need a clear-eyed understanding of the realities facing their communities, the Episcopal Church, and Christianity more broadly. This program will prepare them to respond to those realities in a creative, Spirit-filled way, including by engaging difference in their communities without erasing it. 
• Wise, Faithful Leadership: Priests must know themselves as people on a journey into a deeper experience of Christ, giving thanks for the joys of that journey and developing resilience amid its common pitfalls. Our students will analyze and navigate complex social systems and embody healthy pastoral and ministerial leadership.  
• Creative Community Formation: Tomorrow’s churches and faith-based organizations need support cultivating flexibility, developing a sense of communal responsibility for leadership and care, and forming partnerships that benefit, mobilize, and inspire the wider community. Our graduates will have a passion for reimagining what is possible for the mission of the Church, with God’s help. 

Revised course scope & sequence

As you can see from this course sequence graphic, there are some important changes to highlight in the new course scope and sequence. 

First, we will transition to a quarter system with online and onsite learning included in each term. This change is primarily intended to help hybrid students’ workloads and focus. Our previous hybrid student schedule was beholden to the traditional academic semester, which is optimized for residential students. To graduate on time, our hybrid students were forced to divide their attention among multiple courses each semester in addition to the demands of their work and family commitments. 

We have worked closely with current hybrid students to determine a manageable rhythm and duration for onsite sessions, some of which will take place in other locations to reduce the average travel burden and take advantage of partner relationships. 

Second, we will frame the program with foundations in of our highest theological priorities. We begin with a course in the Anglican ministerial imagination that we call Foundations for Episcopal Ministry. We end with a course on mission in a multifaith world, acknowledging that our students’ contexts are simultaneously post-Christian and post-secular. 

Finally, we reserve year 3 of 4 for an extensive, customized experiential program, which will include contextual education as well as CPE if required.  

Community & formation 

We’ve heard very clearly from our alums and friends who are concerned that students receive the most community-oriented program possible. We agree that deep attention to communal worship, fellowship, and spiritual formation is essential.

Our hybrid students consistently rate the communal aspects of their programs very highly. We believe the big difference our hybrid alums are making in their ministry settings illustrates the hybrid modality’s potential.

Still, we have already begun to restructure our staff to better facilitate formation and community in the new model. Most importantly, we’ve hired our first director of formation and recruitment. The Rev. Deborah Jackson, DMin, is overseeing and continuing to develop our holistic vision for spiritual formation in cohorts and local contexts.

In addition to group-based experiences, our new hybrid student rule of life guides members of our community through building personal foundations of scripture study, daily office participation, intercessory prayer, and deepening curiosity about their local community. We will continue to reimburse each student for their work with the spiritual director of their choice.

What comes next? 

We are already beginning to graft current hybrid students into the new rhythms of the revised curriculum. Each student chose whether to finish their studies according to the new requirements or to continue with those they committed to when they matriculated.  

It continues to be a complex transition. But we know the growing pains will be worth it. It’s not every day that a seminary can so fully redesign its offerings to meet the needs of a changing church. We are grateful for the opportunity, and for all the feedback we have received along the way.