Dear CDSP Alums and Friends,
I am writing to share the news that after a long and productive relationship, we will be leaving the Graduate Theological Union effective January 31, 2026. We continue to give thanks for the witness, spirit, and vitality of this remarkable scholarly community and its considerable impact.
I know hearing this news may be difficult. For many of you, the experience of being able to take courses across the variety of GTU institutions was a wonderful part of your CDSP program. I have read and heard inspiring stories from our alums about ecumenical conversations here that were nothing short of life changing.
However, there are also many ways in which the GTU experience has changed for our students. We weighed those considerations alongside our changing institutional needs when making our final decision.
- We have chosen to focus the mission of the school’s credit-bearing academic programs on preparing priests for the Episcopal Church, which means we will not be accepting MA, MTS, or PhD students for the foreseeable future.
- Over the past five years, we have experienced a notable decline in cross-registrations for GTU courses by our student body.
- The structure our faculty is designing for the new MDiv curriculum to better serve our hybrid students does not align well with the traditional academic year.
- With most of our students and faculty able to live anywhere and visit Berkeley only for onsite sessions, we will have few opportunities, collectively, to make use of the GTU’s wonderful library. (We will arrange for both faculty and students to have access to the library resources they will need to successfully do their work, either through a limited GTU partnership or by other means.)
We believe our educational programs should first and foremost provide the most value possible for our students. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly challenging for members of the CDSP community to take advantage of the most significant opportunities the GTU provides. At the same time, membership in the GTU comes at a significant financial cost for our institution, one we do not think we can justify in light of the issues above.
Several of you have raised with me the need for opportunities to acknowledge the sense of loss that changes underway at CDSP and throughout the Church are raising for many of our alums and friends. I agree with this concern about the need to grieve, and I am committed to appropriately acknowledging and celebrating the tremendous blessings our community has experienced by being a part of the GTU. We will bear in mind the significance of this changing relationship as we navigate major transitional moments before us in the coming years, and we will continue to embrace the ecumenical sensibilities that decades of GTU membership have so firmly instilled in our institution’s culture.
This is a challenging moment, but also an opportunity for CDSP to embrace new ways to better serve our students and our faculty. Please continue to pray for us and for our many partners in mission here in Berkeley in the days ahead.
Yours in Christ,
Dr. Stephen Fowl
President & Dean
