Wake Forest University School of Divinity
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| Type | Private |
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| Established | 1999 |
| Dean | Gail R. O'Day |
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Academic staff
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19 |
| Address | P.O. Box 7719, Winston-Salem, NC 27109, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Campus | Urban |
| Colors | Old gold & Black |
| Website | divinity |
Wake Forest University School of Divinity is an ecumenical divinity school located on the campus of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The School offers a Master of Divinity degree as well several joint degree programs in cooperation with other graduate programs at the university in bioethics, counseling, education, law, and sustainability. The school has 19 faculty.
Wake Forest University developed out of an institute established by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina in 1834, and its first head was the Rev. Samuel Wait. From the beginning, the education of ministers was a primary purpose. In 1946 the trustees of Wake Forest College and the Baptist State Convention accepted a proposal by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to relocate the college from the town of Wake Forest to the growing city of Winston-Salem. Much of the estate of the R. J. Reynolds family was donated for the campus, and when the college moved to the new location in 1956, the theological seminary remained at the old campus. In 1967 Wake Forest became a university with a graduate school, medical school, and law school. In 1989 the trustees of the University approved the idea of forming a School of Divinity, and Baptist churches were major financial contributors to the new school. The very first gift came from the First Baptist Church in New Bern, N.C. where Samuel Wait once served. The first students were admitted in 1999 and accreditation was granted in 2005 by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada.
The Baptist heritage informs the School of Divinity, but from the beginning the school has been intentionally ecumenical in terms of faculty, student body, and curriculum. It is the first university-based divinity school to begin with no formal denominational affiliation. The faculty and administration embody the traditional Baptist values of respect for individual conscience and freedom of religion. Rather than imposing a particular theological perspective on students, the faculty of the School of Divinity provide future ministers with the tools and resources that help them to think seriously about God, the church, the world, and their own vocation. In true Baptist fashion, students are challenged to internalize their education so that they can serve as effective agents of justice, reconciliation, and compassion in an ever-changing world
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