Master of Divinity Degree

Starr King’s M.Div. degree program aims to prepare spiritual leaders with the knowledge, professional skill, and personal capacities to: 

• Counter oppressions 
• Create just and sustainable communities 
• Call forth compassion, wholeness, and liberation
• Cultivate multi-religious life and learning 

• A minimum of 90 units of credit (no residency requirements) 
• Three required core courses: 
  • The Educating to Counter Oppressions (ECO)  (this course needs to be taken within the first six months of the student’s program).
  • The Multi-Religious Core Course
  • An Intensive in Unitarian Universalist Ministry for candidates to UU ministry; or one of the following courses for students with different vocational goals and/or from different spiritual traditions: Spiritual Leadership or Leadership Along the Way.
• 5 or More Units of Contextual Education (for students who matriculated beginning August 2024)
  • Eligible credit: field work or internship in a congregational or community setting, or Clinical Pastoral Education.
  • May be earned singly or cumulatively.Participation in two Symposia (including remote participation.
• Participation in 2 or more SKSM Symposia (including online participation). 
• A mid-term portfolio conference
• A petition to graduate
• A combination of coursework, fieldwork, independent study, experiential learning and special projects to achieve competency in Eight Threshold areas:
  • Life in Religious Community and Interfaith Engagement
  • Prophetic Witness and Work
  • Sacred Text and Interpretation
  • History of Dissenting Traditions and the Thea/ological Quest
  • Spiritual Practice and the Care of the Soul
  • Thea/ology in Culture and Context
  • Educating for Wholeness and Liberation
  • Embodied Wisdom and Beauty

Active and sustained consultation between advisor and candidate is necessary for the depth and breadth of a Starr King M.Div. degree to be achieved.  With the guidance and approval your advisor, as a Starr King degree candidate you develop and complete a personalized educational plan that engages you in relational/constructive learning, drawing on multiple modes of teaching and learning. The plan achieves structure through the flow of the academic year, with its rhythm of in-person intensive periods in Oakland in January and August, and flexible options during the fall, spring, and June-July summer periods during which time you may be studying in or beyond Oakland—in your  home community or in a site around the globe. The plan achieves educational coherence through the framework of three required Core Intensives, the annual Symposia, and the Eight Thresholds in which you must acquire competency. The plan adapts to your specific gifts, challenges, culture, context, religious tradition(s), communities of accountability, and vocational calling as you chart a personalized course of study, making use of diverse modes of teaching and learning, including learning from life experience integrated with theological studies.

M.Div. candidates are required to complete three core intensives.  The required core intensives provide a foundational engagement with the degree program’s learning goals, introduce approaches to relational/constructive learning, offer ways to integrate spiritual practice and professional development with the scholarly study of religion and build a community of learning. The core intensives are offered as week-long intensives in August and January, with advance and follow-up work: 

• The ECO Intensive introduces students to “educating to create just and sustainable communities that counter oppressions” 
• The Multi-Religious Intensive introduces students to “multi-religious life and learning.”
• The Ministry/Spiritual Leadership requirement can be taken in one of two modes:  the UU Ministry Intensive is specifically for candidates for UU ministry; the Spiritual Leadership Intensive, Ministry Along the Way, and Organizational Management are oriented to diverse forms of religious leadership in a variety of religious and spiritual traditions.   M.Div. students may take both modes if desired. 

Starr King’s Eight Thresholds engage M.Div. candidates in developing their abilities to perform the classic roles of ministry and religious leadership (such as ritual and worship leader, preacher, teacher, prophetic activist, spiritual care giver, congregational leader, religious scholar and thea/ologian) as reflective practitioners who integrate into their work the knowledge and skills gained through the classic disciplines and fields of theological and religious studies (such as study of sacred scriptures, history of global religious traditions, theological methods and approaches, social ethics, psychology of religion, ritual and liturgical studies, spirituality studies, organization theory and systems theory, educational philosophies, and more). Starr King emphasizes engagement with the Thresholds through a multi-religious, counter-oppressive lens, inspiring new insights and generating new forms of ministry and spiritual leadership. Engaging with each threshold also requires you to deepen personal qualities and habits for successful spiritual leadership and/or ministry, such as mature judgment, self-awareness, spiritual practice, integrity, responsibility, sensitivity and ethical discernment. The Thresholds overlap and intersect with one another in multiple ways.  As you work with them, in dynamic interaction with one another, you develop a matrix of knowledge and skill that will enable you to move forward in the world equipped to offer ministry, serve as a chaplain or spiritual leader in ways that will

• Create just and sustainable communities that counter oppressions
• Call forth healing, wholeness, compassion and liberation
• Cultivate multi-religious life and learning

MULTI-RELIGIOUS, COUNTER OPPRESSIVE THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION

Through the Starr King M.Div. program people of diverse faiths are formed for ministry and religious leadership in a community of multi-religious life and learning. Starr King students are called to become ministers, scholars, and religious leaders who can proactively offer life-giving alternatives to conflict among global religious traditions, and who can lead people of diverse religious perspectives and traditions to work together to build just and sustainable communities that address critical issues facing the world: global climate change, morphing forms of racism, legacies of violence and economic injustice. In fulfilling this calling, Starr King invites attention to counter-oppressive practices and approaches.  The School lifts up under-represented voices and topics in multi-religious work, such as religious and ethnic minorities within traditions, as well as transgender, queer, and feminist and womanist perspectives. While attending to critical points of under-representation, the accent is on creative and joyful expressions of multi-religious interchange and community. Teaching and learning at Starr King foster understanding of how the world’s religious traditions have always been interacting with one another — influencing and shaping one another. Starr King will engage you in forming a deeper understanding of these histories of relationship, and will empower imagination and creativity in response to present day challenges and opportunities. Starr King’s distinctive emphasis on multi-religious, counter-oppressive education embodies Unitarian Universalist principles and sources, which include: 

• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence 
• The inherent worth and dignity of every person 
• Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, 
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all 
• Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life 
• Words and deeds of prophetic people which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love 
• Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life 

Your personalized educational plan enables you to achieve competency in the Eight Threshold areas through multiple modes of teaching and learning:
Courses

• Starr King online (asynchronous) and hybrid (synchronous) courses in fall and spring semesters
• Starr King Symposia in January and intensives in August and January
• Starr King immersions offered on occasion in sites around the globe

Field Education, Practice Teaching, and Internships

• Parish internships in Unitarian Universalist congregations
• Field Education in religious communities, youth work, justice, and educational organizations, and community sites
• Clinical Pastoral Education in hospitals, prisons, and social service institutions
• Practice Teaching as a Hilda Mason Teaching Fellow—designing an offering a course through Starr King, a congregation, or a community organization
• Field education and internship experiences are enhanced by required participation in theological reflection

Independent Study and Advance Research Projects

• Starr King Individualized Learning
• Research Projects under the direction of SKSM core faculty

ONLINE AND HYBRID COURSES

FIELD WORK, INTERNSHIPS, AND OTHER MODES OF LEARNING

In addition to course work (in diverse modes—online, hybrid, intensive, and semester-long residential options), your M.Div. educational plan may include study through fieldwork, internships, Clinical Pastoral Education, practice teaching, independent projects, and experiential learning. Fieldwork becomes field education through participation in group reflection on experience in the field. Fieldwork reflection groups convene each semester in hybrid modes (Z participation allowed). Full and part-time parish internships are arranged with congregations across the continent and are augmented by a Parish Intern Reflection Group and a January Parish Internship Conference in Oakland which brings interns, teaching ministers, and Starr King faculty together for two days of conversation and learning. Formal Clinical Pastoral Education opportunities are an option for M.Div. candidates and a requirement of preparation for Unitarian Universalist ministry.

WRITTEN EVALUATIONS

Starr King School evaluates M.Div. students through written evaluations rather than letter grades. Instead of ranking students in comparison with one another in a mode of competition, instructors assess instructors will evaluate you on your individual merit, and your achievements in relationship to the stated learning goals of the course or learning experience, your contribution to a relational learning environment and to “education that builds just and sustainable community that counters oppressions and cultivates multi-religious life and learning.” Faculty and field work supervisors will give you critical feedback and guidance on areas of needed improvement, as well as praise and affirmation for significant strengths and accomplishments. Students, in consultation with their advisor, may request a letter grade for a course in addition to a written evaluation. When a letter grade is requested, the instructor has discretion to establish the basis on which a letter grade will be determined.

Entrance to the M.Div. program normally requires a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university or an equivalent degree from a non-U.S. school. The School may occasionally offer admission to a well-qualified applicant who has not completed a B.A. if the applicant shows evidence of capacity for graduate-level work. The School limits such admissions to no more than 15% of the student body.