Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, Set

WOMEN IN THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION

WOMEN IN THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION l 923 WOMEN IN THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION Jeanne P. McLean WOMEN’S LONG HISTORY of participation in the congregational life of North American churches stands in stark contrast to the brief history of women in theological education. In recent decades, however, the number of women enrolled in theological schools has increased steadily; women now serve on the vast majority of faculties; women have achieved significant numbers among seminary administrators, and a small percentage have attained senior leadership positions. Although these positive changes for women occurred in a relatively short time, many of those who made this recent history find that women’s progress in theological education has been slow in coming and hard won. The single richest source of information on women in theological education is found in records of the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) in the United States and Canada, the accrediting agency for theological schools in North America. The Association began in 1936 with 64 schools and in the year 2000 had 235 member institutions that offered graduate theological study oriented to the practice of ministry. The seminaries , divinity schools, and schools of religion/theology of the Association are denominational, interdenominational , and nondenominational, urban and rural, and independent and university related, ranging in size from 19 students to over 3,800. The story of women’s role and contributions to theological education in North America is embedded in the collective history of this broad and diverse group of theological schools. culture, produces women leaders, and taps the rich vein of gifts often ignored in crafting a global future for humanity . There is likely to be less stress on “Protestant” given the ecumenical strides taken in Protestant-Roman Catholic relationships. More will become “independent” colleges without religious affiliation while maintaining openness to religious studies and to an environment that values religious discernment and community. It is possible that religiously oriented Christian colleges for women will lead the way in establishing interreligious dialogue and globally focused communities of learning, while not losing their particularity as church-related institutions . Entering the public conversation in the twenty-first century, Protestant women’s colleges—both those who now honor that linkage and those whose history was shaped by it—will no doubt continue to affirm the value of spiritual growth and development, the links between faith and learning, and the commitment to work toward a common humanity living together in peace. SOURCES: Barbara Miller Solomon’s In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America (1985) is an essential counterpoint to earlier texts in the history of higher education and is a major resource in this essay. In addition, the following scholars pick up some of the gaps in the field: Geraldine Joncich Clifford, in John Mack Faragher and Florence Howe, eds., Women and Higher Education in American History (1988); Linda Eisenmann, Historical Dictionary of Women’s Education in the United States (1998); Elene Wilson Farello, A History of Education of Women in the United States (1970); Jean Glasscock, ed., Wellesley College 1875–1975: A Century of Women (1975); Willystine Goodsell, Pioneers of Women’s Education in the United States (1931; rept. 1970); Elizabeth Green, Mary Lyon & Mount Holyoke: Opening the Gates (1979); Alice Payne Hackett, Wellesley: Part of the American Story (1949); Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women’s Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s and “The Great Debate,” Harvard Magazine (November–December 1999), available online at http://www.harvardmag.com/issues/ nd99/womanless.2.html (1984); Rosalind Amelia Keep, Fourscore and Ten Years, a History of Mills College, rev. ed. (1946); Amy Thompson McCandless, The Past in the Present: Women’s Higher Education in the Twentieth-Century American South (1999); Mabel Newcomer, A Century of Higher Education for American Women (1956); George Herbert Palmer and Alice Freeman Palmer, The Teacher: Essays and Addresses on Education (1908); John Palmer Gavit, What Are Women’s Colleges Doing? A Reporter Visits Smith, Wellesley, Vassar, Bryn Mawr (1923); Constance Warren, A New Design for Women’s Education (1940), especially 198–211. Other sources not focused on women’s colleges but offering some insight include Christopher Jencks and David Riesman’s The Academic Revolution (1968); Alexander Astin’s What Matters Most in College? Four Critical Years (1977, 1993); and Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989). Information on early church relationships of specific Protestant colleges can be found in the...