Clergy Education Study

The Carnegie Foundation studied the academic preparation of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish clergy. Through intensive documentation of a cross-section of theological schools, the study sought to understand, broadly, how theological education fosters the development of a pastoral imagination that has the capacity to integrate professional knowledge and skills with moral integrity and religious commitment.

Senior Staff

• Charles Foster, Senior Scholar
• Lisa Dahill, Research Scholar
• Larry Goleman, Research Consultant
  
  

Major Publication

Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination
Charles R. Foster, Lisa Dahill, Larry Golemon, Barbara Wang Tolentino. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005.

Based on extensive literary and field research involving surveys, classroom observations, and interviews with faculty, students, and administrators in Roman Catholic, mainline and evangelical Protestant, and Reform and Conservative Jewish seminaries, Educating Clergy explores the influence of their historic traditions and academic settings in contemporary classroom and communal pedagogies. The book describes elements in classroom pedagogies shared across these religious traditions that distinctively integrate the cognitive, practical, and normative apprenticeships to be found in all forms of professional education.