The University of Notre Dame was recently ranked as offering the world’s best theology, divinity and religious studies, by QS World University Rankings.
Todd Walatka, a theology teaching professor and assistant chair for graduate studies, expressed that Notre Dame’s department of theology is not only greatly honored by the award but significantly glad its efforts are being observed by other institutions.
“It’s exciting to have this kind of recognition in terms of our place in the world. The rankings come from how others outside the University view our department and then is also in terms of our research productivity. That’s a great recognition,” Walatka said.
When asked what is central to the success of the theology department, Hesburgh professor of Catholic thought Gary Anderson highlighted the department’s diversity in religious professors and the positive contributions that diversity has made.
“We’ve hired people across the spectrum of theological ideas, both within Catholicism and including the world religions. We have Jewish faculty members as well as Muslim faculty members and people also representing other world religions within the department. I think we have a pretty broad range and reach in terms of what we teach and how we teach,” Anderson said.
Agreeing with Anderson’s statement on theological diversity, Ann Astell, the John Cardinal O’Hara professor of theology, claimed that on top of diverse religious perspectives, the academic excellence of the department’s faculty truly elevates the program.
“Our faculty members have won very distinguished prizes. We’ve had two members of our department win the Ratzinger Prize, which is like the equivalent of a Nobel Prize,” Astell said.
Also speaking to the benefits of religious diversity in the department and classroom, Walatka stated that the department aims to ensure each branch of Notre Dame’s theological offerings is met with the highest standard of academic excellence.
“I think the strength of our department is that we do a lot of things very well, and so we teach theology rooted in Catholic tradition, rooted in the past, but also engage in contemporary concerns and contemporary events,” Walatka said. “We have experts in Islam, but not just contemporary, but also the history of Islam. Same thing with Judaism, same thing with Eastern religions, but even within a kind of Christian religion. We have folks working on the Catholic Church. We have scholars of Eastern Orthodox, of Protestantism ... We have a broad expertise.”
Astell also emphasized the importance of attracting and maintaining strong faculty ties.
“I would say number one is that we actually have a faculty that has expertise in a variety of fields, and so all of the major subdivisions of theology are represented in our department, and not every department has strengths across the line,” Astell said. “In each of those subfields, our faculty have made important contributions over time, and it’s also something that sort of builds up, so the reputation of the department has grown over time, and we’ve been able to maintain strengths in those areas.”
Anderson provided insight to the way in which his course is taught, which looks at various religious texts and their range of applications between religions.
“I teach the Bible in such a way that students are exposed not simply to traditional Catholic approaches but also how many Protestants have read the text, as well as, most importantly, since I teach the Old Testament, how Jewish tradition has also read those texts. In almost every course that I teach, I give the students a broader range of approaches to the text that we examine,” Anderson said.
When asked how students can benefit from enrolling in theology courses beyond the University-required Foundations of Theology and Developmental Theology courses, Astell indicated that the courses that students majoring or minoring in theology take are extremely indicative of which theology courses will appeal to the majority of Notre Dame students.
“We have an astronomical number of students who are majoring and minoring in theology, so a strong faculty and well-taught courses at the entry level just capture students’ interests. I think the benefit of the theology department is that it gives answers to some more fundamental questions, or what students want to think about,” Astell said.
Astell indicated that the University is not only deserving of the title as the world’s best theology, divinity and religious studies program because of its religious nature but also because of its dedication to the innovative and academic upkeep of its program in the wake of diverse student perspectives.
“Our department takes an integral approach to theological studies. With theology, even though we have the subfields, we still think of theology as an integrative field. It’s not just a biblical studies area, but one that takes account of biblical reception, so some of our faculty are even in ... two different subfields. It’s everything and it's holistic, but we also have strengths in these individual subfields,” Astell said.
