Harvard Divinity School

Harvard Divinity School
Coat of arms of the School
Established	1816
Type	Theological studies
Parent institution	Harvard University
Academic affiliation	Boston Theological Institute
Location	Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States Coordinates: 42°22′48″N 71°06′47″W / 42.38006°N 71.11298°W / 42.38006; -71.11298
Dean	David N. Hempton
Academic staff	44
Students	283
Doctoral students	41 Doctor of Theology
Alumni	6,307
Website	www.hds.harvard.edu

Harvard Divinity School is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. As of June 2015^[update], the School's mission is to train and educate its students either in the academic study of religion, or for the practice of a religious ministry or other public service vocation. It also caters to students from other Harvard schools that are interested in the former field. Harvard Divinity School is among a small group of university-based, non-denominational divinity schools in the United States (the others include the University of Chicago Divinity School, Yale Divinity School, Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Wake Forest University School of Divinity).

Harvard College was founded in 1636 as a Puritan/Congregationalist institution and trained ministers for many years. The separate institution of the Divinity School, however, dates from 1816, when it was established as the first non-denominational divinity school in the United States. (Princeton Theological Seminary had been founded as a Presbyterian institution in 1812. Andover Theological Seminary was founded in 1807 by orthodox Calvinists who fled Harvard College after it appointed liberal theologian Henry Ware to the Hollis Professorship of Divinity in 1805.)

During its first century, Harvard Divinity School was unofficially associated with American Unitarianism. However, it also retains a historical tie to one of the successor denominations of American Congregationalism, the United Church of Christ.