Meadville Lombard Theological School

Meadville Lombard Theological School

The Meadville Lombard Theological School, located in Chicago, is a Unitarian Universalist seminary.

It is a result of a merger in the 1930s between a Unitarian and a Universalist institution. Meadville Lombard is one of two Unitarian Universalist seminaries and offers the following graduate degree programs: Master of Divinity, Master of Arts in Religion, Doctor of Ministry, and the dual degree of Master of Divinity/Master of Arts in Leadership Studies. The school's mission is to educate ministers to serve in Unitarian Universalist congregations or wherever else they are called to serve. The degree programs are open to students of all faiths.

Meadville Theological School was founded in 1844 in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Most of the original funding came from a recent convert to Unitarianism, a wealthy businessman named Harm Jan Huidekoper and from the Independent Congregational Church. One of its best-known alumni was Jenkin Lloyd Jones, who played a prominent role in the growth of the Western Unitarian Convention.

Meadville Theological School moved to Chicago and became affiliated with the University of Chicago in 1926. It began construction on its permanent building in 1929. With the failure of Ryder Divinity School and Lombard College in 1930, the Lombard charter moved to Meadville Theological School in Chicago and became the Meadville Lombard Theological School. The school is unique as it has a tax exemption, "one of only three in Illinois granting full tax-exempt status in perpetuity for all college-owned property. Monmouth College and Northwestern University have the other two."

Meadville Lombard is distinctive for the caliber of its faculty, including world-renowned ethicist Sharon D. Welch, Michael Hogue (2008 recipient of the Templeton Award for Theological Promise), as well as graduates and affiliated faculty members William F. Schulz and Mark Morrison-Reed.

The school offers four full-tuition merit scholarships and provides financial aid. It is accredited by the Association of Theological Schools. The Meadville Lombard Educational Model will commence with students entering the Master of Divinity degree program in Fall 2009. The model blends traditional rigorous academic learning with experiential learning in community and congregational settings.

The trustees sold the Hyde Park building, adjacent to the University of Chicago campus, which housed the school since 1929 in order to realize its assets, expand finances and avoid deferred maintenance liabilities, relocating to the Spertus Institute in Chicago's downtown Loop at the end of 2011.