Lifelong Learning at Vanderbilt Divinity School

Community Courses for Continuing Education

Nathan Cost

Welcome from the Associate Director


Welcome to Lifelong Learning at Vanderbilt Divinity School!

We offer faith-informed continuing education and formational programming for individuals, organizations, and religious communities.  Our programs include executive education, certificates, vocational training, seminars, and parish teaching that will cultivate new skills and form deeper callings throughout all seasons of one’s vocation.  Reach out with any questions; we’d love to hear from you!

Nathan Cost, Ph.D.  Associate Director for Lifelong Learning
Nathan.a.cost@vanderbilt.edu;
615-343-0706

Courses

Lent in the Light of Easter: Its Origins, Evolution, and Contemporary Practices

Instructor: Fr. Bruce T. Morrill, PhD, J.S. 

$75.00 

In-person  

The forty-day season of Lent figures among the most important annual observances of not only Catholic and Orthodox Christians but also wide and even increasing numbers of Protestants. In this three-session series, we will explore the rich history of Lent’s origins and development, including the evolution of such markers as Ash Wednesday and other devotions, with a view to their practice today. Major topics on the contemporary reform and renewal of the Lenten season will include spiritual formation through the Sunday biblical readings; prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as preparation for the celebration and/or renewal of baptism at Easter; and why and how the church holds the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday) as the most sacred moment in the church year.

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Moral Leadership: What is It, and How Are You a Moral Leader?

Instructor: Laine Walters Young

$50.00 

Online

Learners will leave the course with concrete practices for building and restoring trust, how to make their integrity known to those around them, and what courage and imagination looks like and can be applied in the everyday work of ministerial, social service, business, and nonprofit fields.  

Request the course for your Group 

The Religion of Carcerality and the Religion of Abolition

Instructor: Andrew Krinks 

$25.00

Online

Why do we have police and prisons? What role does religion play in building police and prisons, and what role might religion play in building a world without them? This course explores the religious roots and function of carceral institutions in the United States.

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Events

  • Dialogue Vanderbilt: History of Scopes Trial

    1/29/25

    1:00 PM Vanderbilt Divinity School Room 127 (Reading Room)

    Dialogue Vanderbilt: History of Scopes Trial

  • Bogitish Lecture

    2/26/25

    7:00 PM Vanderbilt Divinity School Room 127 (Reading Room)

    Bogitish Lecture

Previous VDS Events

An invitation to a Generation of Queer Liberation

2022 Antoinette Brown Lecture

Vanderbilt Divinity School | 2022 Commencement