HDS Adopts New Mission Statement After Yearlong Strategic Planning Process

Harvard Divinity School began operating under a new mission statement last month for the first time since 2008 — the only concrete change immediately resulting from a yearlong strategic planning process that took place as the school warned of rising pressure on its budget.

The updated mission statement, which reads “Harvard Divinity School advances scholarly research on religions around the world and educates students for intellectual leadership, professional service, and ministry in a multireligious environment,” is the first to explicitly highlight the multireligious nature of the school, which was founded in 1816 as a nonsectarian Christian theological school.

At its founding, the Divinity School described its purpose as ensuring “every encouragement be given to the serious, impartial, and unbiased investigation of Christian truth.” Its most recent prior mission statement said the school “educates students of religion for intellectual leadership, professional service, and ministry.”

HDS Dean Marla Frederick released the updated mission statement in an announcement about the school’s new five-year strategic plan, published in October.

The plan came after warnings this spring of “reductions to the school’s budget that will take place next fiscal year” — as well as University-wide pressure on Harvard’s finances, especially as Congress hikes the tax on its endowment next year — but offered few concrete details on planned changes at HDS.

It included only two lines on the school’s finances: One committed to “evaluating admissions practices, cohort sizes, and financial aid models to develop a more sustainable financial model while advancing the mission of HDS.” The other nodded to creating “sustainable new revenue streams.”

But neither statement included more specific proposals or information about the plan’s implementation.

Divinity School spokesperson Tyler Sprouse wrote in an emailed statement that the areas of focus described in the plan “will be evaluated, though there are currently no changes or implementation plans at this time.”

But HDS chalked up major changes earlier this year to the initiation of the strategic planning process. When administrators at the school suspended the Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative last April and initiated an overhaul of its parent program, they said it was in response to a review that began as part of HDS’s strategic planning process.

The strategic priorities released by Frederick last month made no mention of the changes at RCPI or its parent program, Religion and Public Life.

Several HDS students said they had yet to be directly impacted by the school’s new strategic plan, which is intended to serve as a roadmap for the school over the next five years.

Samuel S. Bundy, a first-year Master of Theology student, said that students were aware of the release of the plan and updated mission statement, but that it hadn’t made a significant impact.

“Some people mentioned it here or there, but I never heard anybody who is outwardly upset about it,” he said.

“I literally can’t even just remember what it said,” said Grace X. Sill, a third-year Master of Divinity student at HDS.

Sill said that the changes at RPL challenged the trust between students and the school’s leadership, though she said she understood that administrators were operating under significant constraints.

“​​Overall, what I see and hear more often is more distrust,” she said. “I think for me, I personally can see the tensions that everyone is under.”

Marshall J. Laidlaw, a second-year Master of Divinity student at HDS, said that school’s new strategic plan was rolled out with too little feedback from students.

“There’s a feeling of not enough student input being considered as we chart the trajectory of the Divinity School going into the future,” he said. “I think that relates back to students feeling a lack of trust and a lack of being able to co-design what this space is like.”

Sprouse, the HDS spokesperson, wrote that the new strategic planning process was informed by feedback from more than 200 affiliates through surveys, interviews, and focus groups.

—Staff writer Sebastian B. Connolly can be reached at sebastian.connolly@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @SebastianC4784.

—Staff writer Julia A. Karabolli can be reached at julia.karabolli@thecrimson.com.