About HDS

Harvard Divinity School is a nonsectarian school of religious and theological studies that educates students both in the pursuit of the academic study of religion and in preparation for leadership in religious, governmental, and a wide range of service organizations.

Founded in 1816, and one of the oldest of Harvard University's professional schools, HDS has a long history of fostering scholarship and critical thinking, as well as supporting service and ministry.

Harvard Divinity School is proud of the diversity of the students who enter one of the four degree programs the school offers. Approximately 40 religious traditions and denominations are represented in the student body, and this same broad spectrum is reflected in students' academic interests and backgrounds, age, gender, nationalities and ethnicities, cultures and traditions, and professional and life goals.

The faculty, researchers, and counselors at HDS are among the most distinguished scholars of religious practice and belief in the world. Students at HDS learn from specialists in the Christian, Unitarian Universalist, Jewish traditions, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, African, Mesoamerican, and Latino traditions.

HDS graduates are engaged in a wide variety of professions. They continue in academic careers and go on to educate future scholars and teachers of religion and theology; they become ministers and leaders in their own religious traditions; they work in public service and with governmental, nongovernmental, and social organizations, in nonprofits and in business, in the arts, in health care, and in other professions.