Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School is a theological college affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA. The present day school, which sits on the top of a hill in the neighborhood of Highland Park in Rochester, New York is a product of several mergers.
The school is progressive and ecumenical in theology, with Baptists, United Methodists, Presbyterians and members of other denominations on its faculty and in its student body. The school shares partnerships with Bexley Hall Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Columbus, OH and Chicago, IL, an Episcopal Church seminary, and St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry, a Roman Catholic theological school which shared its facilities from 1981 until 2003, and since has moved to a nearby site.
It is a small school with seven full-time faculty and 14 part-time faculty, and slightly more than 100 full-time students. Dr. Conrad Henry Moehlman (1879â€"1961) was emeritus professor. The current president is the Rev. Dr. Marvin A. McMickle, who was previously the pastor at Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio.
History
The Rochester Theological Seminary was formed in 1850 at the founding of the University of Rochester by a group from Colgate Theological Seminary in Hamilton, New York who wished to move to an urban setting. By 1928, the remainder of the Hamilton seminary removed to Rochester. In 1961, the school was joined by the Baptist Missionary Training School, a woman's school from Chicago.
Again in 1970 the school merged, this time with Crozer Theological Seminary, the Baptist school from Upland, Pennsylvania where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. studied.
Notable alumni
- James E. Cheek, former president of Howard University
- Edwin T. Dahlberg, pacifist and Colgate trustee
- Frederick German Detweiler (American sociologist)
- James Alexander Forbes, Jr. (1935 - ), Senior Minister Emeritus of the Riverside Church in New York City, the largest multicultural congregation in the nation.
- Martin Luther King, Jr., minister, activist, prominent leader in the African-American civil rights movement; attended Crozer Seminary located in Chester, Pennsylvania before its merger with Colgate Divinity School in 1970
- Lorraine K. Potter, Chief of Chaplains of the U.S. Air Force
- Walter Rauschenbusch, theologian, minister, key figure in the Social Gospel movement
- Leonard Sweet, author, preacher, scholar
- Howard Thurman, author, civil rights leader, Dean of Chapel for Howard University and Boston University
- Wyatt Tee Walker, Co-founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) (1957), Executive Dir. SCLC (1960â€"1964); Senior Pastor, Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem (1967â€"2004)
- Frederick B. Williams, Canon and Rector of Church of the Intercession, Harlem (1972â€"2005); Founder of Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement
External links
- Official web site
- ATS accreditation
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