Harvard Among Top Schools for Divinity, Theology, Religious Studies

March 10, 2020
Harvard Among Top Schools for Divinity, Theology, Religious Studies
QS uses a wide-ranging methodology for its rankings.

For the fourth year in a row, Harvard has been named one of the world’s best schools for the study of divinity, theology, and religious studies by the influential QS World University Rankings. The School rounds out a 2020 top three that includes the University of Notre Dame and the University of Oxford.

(Find out about degree programs, financial aid , or how to apply to HDS, or make a gift to support one of the world’s leading institutions for religious scholarship and education.)

QS, which aims to help prospective students identify the world’s leading schools in their field of interest, uses a wide-ranging methodology for its rankings, including a school’s academic reputation, employer reputation, academic citations per paper by faculty, and H-Index citations (measuring productivity and the impact of published work by faculty).

As the leader of the School that partners with scholars across the University to advance knowledge of the world’s religions, HDS Dean David N. Hempton said he was “delighted and grateful” to hear that Harvard had again been recognized by QS.

“It’s humbling to be included with the world’s top institutions for the study of religion,” he said. “We take it as a challenge not only to redouble our efforts to improve the breadth and depth of our scholarship, but also to build understanding of the ways that religion promotes—and too often thwarts—human flourishing.”

Other U.S. institutions that made the top ten included Yale, Duke, the University of Chicago, and Boston College.

Founded in 1816 as the country’s first non-sectarian divinity school, Harvard Divinity School is the hub of the study of religion at Harvard University. A training ground for scholars and spiritual innovators in all religious traditions, the School prepares ethical, religiously literate professionals whomake a world of difference.

Harvard’s Faculty of Divinity includes some of the most accomplished scholars of religion in the world, with international reputations in the fields of Islamic Studies, Hinduism and Indian Religions, Tibetan Buddhism, African and African American Religions, Comparative Theology, and Feminist Theology as well as in areas of traditional strength such as Biblical Studies, Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible, History of Christianity, and American Religious History.

HDS faculty regularly author prize-winning books, lead major sessions at the yearly conference of the American Academy of Religion, and figure prominently in many other spheres of scholarly service.

The School’s student body includes more than 30 different faiths and denominations and aspires to be a model of informed pluralism critical for healthy communities around the world and for human flourishing.

HDS graduates are prominent scholars in the departments of religion of the country’s most prestigious universities. They lead large denominations and shape twenty-first century spiritual life in all religious traditions—and in burgeoning communities of the “spiritual but not religious.”

In addition to becoming ministers and leaders in their own religious traditions, HDS alumni work in public service and with governmental, nongovernmental, and social organizations, in nonprofits and in business, in the arts, in health care, and in many other professions where devotion to service and knowledge of religion are vital.

by Paul Massari