Chapter 2.7: Graduate Theological Union

The GTU is the most comprehensive center for the graduate study of religion in North America. With a focus on interreligious and interdisciplinary perspectives, GTU faculty and students engage the world’s great religions and wisdom traditions in contemporary contexts. The GTU educates innovative leaders for the academy, religious organizations, and the nonprofit sector, equipping scholars to embody the critical thinking, ethical frameworks, compassionate values, and spiritual foundations essential to building a more just, peaceful, and sustainable world.

More than a school of theology, the GTU is a union of schools and programs that, together, represent the world’s major religions in collaboration. The GTU is an enterprise that cultivates the highest scholarly standards and provides opportunities to translate scholarship into solutions with impact. The GTU provides a unique community where scholars and practitioners from across the world's great religions gather for academic study of their own and of other traditions and disciplines. It is comprised of eight seminary schools, and many centers and programs that extend the GTU’s inter-religious community and curriculum.

The Jesuit School of Theology has been a fully participating school of the GTU since January 1966 and shares the library and a common registrar. Each seminary admits its own students, designs its own educational programs, and grants its own professional degrees; but course offerings, use of classrooms, days and hours of classes, and registration are coordinated through the Dean’s Office of the GTU. Cooperative programs among seminaries are developed and carried out through the Union. Through this cooperative arrangement, a Jesuit School student is eligible to register in all courses offered by the GTU’s participating schools and institutes. The faculties of the various member schools constitute the faculty of the Union. The member schools of the GTU offer a common M.A. program in cooperation with the GTU.

MEMBER SCHOOLS

Berkeley School of Theology (American Baptist)

Church Divinity School of the Pacific (Episcopal)

Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (Catholic)

Institute for Buddhist Studies (Buddhist)

Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University (Catholic)

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University (Lutheran)

Pacific School of Religion (Multi-denominational)

San Francisco Theological Seminary (part of the Graduate School of Theology at the University of Redlands) (Presbyterian)