Illinois Great Rivers Conference 2025 Journal-Yearbook
responding to trauma, and the use of AI to predict religious extremism. Selected stories are found at bu.edu/sth/research/faculty-research/ . • Scholarships: We continue to offer free tuition to UMC-registered candidates for ordained ministry and leadership fellowships that support students in ethnic, gender, and sexuality studies. New funds include Rev. James M. Smith (’51) Fund for Latinx Lay Education and Rev. Tom Sears (’59) Chaplaincy Operating Fund. We have increased an endowed fund for students specializing in Hebrew Bible. • Accreditation and Curriculum: BUSTH concluded a thorough curriculum revision for the MDiv and MTS programs which launched in fall 2024. • Online Lifelong Learning: BUSTH offers online courses for professional and spiritual enrichment of religious leaders. Recent offerings include “A Womanist Ethic of Care.” To learn more, visit bu.edu/sth/oll . • Development: Recent accomplishments include endowing the Raíces Latinas Program in Theology, Leadership, & Research and meeting a $250K match in support of the Religion & Conflict Transformation Program. COMMITMENT TO JUSTICE and COMPASSION: • BUSTH’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offers webinars on timely inclusion efforts, such as “ Spiritual Leadership in Divided Times: Trauma and Thurman ,” and $500 DEI scholarships are offered to students with financial need to participate in our travel seminars. • Our Fall 2024 Lowell Lecture premiered “Simulating Religious Violence,” which captured the work of computer scientists and religious scholars to seek to address conflicts rooted in religious violence. • Work continues to improve accessibility, sustainability, and responsible investing as written in our 2030 Strategic Plan. BUSTH is the first certified Green School at BU and is active in the Green Seminary Initiative. With faith and gratitude, G. Sujin Pak, Dean Drew University Theological School Drew University Theological School educates and mentors pastors, preachers, deacons, activists, teachers, thought leaders, and change agents for ministry and service in the church, society, and the wider world. Building upon its Wesleyan and Methodist foundations, Drew Theological School is diverse in theology, vocations, age, as well as racial, ethnic, national, and international identities of its faculty, students, and staff. Many Drew students are just beginning their ministry, while others come to graduate theological education with prior ministry experience. The latter reflects a growing trend among all theological schools in the United States and Canada. In providing theological education to the world, Drew holds in-person classes in Madison, New Jersey, classes that meet exclusively online, while others meet in hybrid fashion, i.e., partially online, partially in-person, as well as in-person Doctor of Ministry cohort in South Korea and a pilot in-person Master of Divinity cohort in Liberia. Regular chapel worship originates on campus in Seminary Hall, but also is live-streamed so that students, alumni, and friends around the world can participate. Drew Theological School is a global seminary with a global student
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