Resource Hub

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Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers, Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Field Education / Contextual Ed Supervisors, Other Institutional Administration, Spiritual Directors Tidy Studios Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers, Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Field Education / Contextual Ed Supervisors, Other Institutional Administration, Spiritual Directors Tidy Studios

How Would We Know? Assessing Personal and Spiritual Formation in Clergy and Church Leadership

Description: Using a case study drawn from research across theological schools, this workshop explores how to assess pastoral formation. Participants will strengthen the questions guiding their evaluation efforts, consider what evidence of formation they hope to see, and gain resources for advancing assessment conversations in their own contexts.

Keywords: assessment; character formation; clergy formation; educational assessment; formation assessment; Graduating Student Questionnaire; intercultural competence; personal formation; seminarian formation; spiritual formation; spiritual maturity; student development; theological education

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Faculty, Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers, Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Other Institutional Administration, Field Education / Contextual Ed Supervisors Tidy Studios Faculty, Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers, Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Other Institutional Administration, Field Education / Contextual Ed Supervisors Tidy Studios

What Graduating Student Questionnaire data can contribute to formation assessment

Formation assessment can be difficult when schools rely on individual survey items or a single overall measure to represent complex student outcomes. Drawing on a peer-reviewed analysis of 5,528 theological school graduates and a follow-up analysis of the class of 2026, this article shows how ATS Graduating Student Questionnaire data can illuminate distinct dimensions and patterns of formation—including spirituality, social justice commitment, intercultural competence, self-identity, interdisciplinary integration, and well-being—and offers practical ways schools can incorporate these findings into locally meaningful assessment strategies.

KEYWORDS: assessment; formation assessment; Graduating Student Questionnaire; GSQ; spiritual formation; social justice; intercultural competence; self-identity; interdisciplinary integration; student well-being; theological education; educational assessment; student outcomes; survey data; institutional effectiveness

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Field Education / Contextual Ed Supervisors, Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers, Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Field Education / Contextual Ed Supervisors, Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers, Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios

Formation for plural pathways: another story told by ATS alum/workforce data

Theological education has often imagined vocational formation around a single primary role, but ATS alumni data show that nearly three in 10 employed graduates hold multiple positions, with such arrangements often persisting years after graduation. The article argues that theological schools should respond by helping students integrate multiple roles, develop transferable skills, understand adjacent career pathways, and imagine coherent vocations that extend beyond a single job or ministry setting.

KEYWORDS: alumni; bivocational ministry; career pathways; multipositional work; multivocational ministry; portfolio careers; theological education; theological formation; transferable skills; vocation; vocational discernment; vocational formation; workforce; employment; career advising; field education; ATS Alum/Mapping the Workforce Study

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Alumni/Clergy, Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Alumni/Clergy, Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios

The Ministry Label: Who Claims It, Who Doesn’t

Using data from the 2022–23 Mapping the Workforce Study, the article explores how ATS alumni describe their work several years after graduation, including how ministry identity, employer-required credentials, and work settings intersect. It highlights graduates whose vocations fall outside traditional congregational ministry and raises questions about how theological schools can better support vocational discernment and alumni formation.

KEYWORDS: alumni; career discernment; clergy; congregational ministry; credentials; employment; ministry identity; non-congregational ministry; theological education; theological formation; vocation; vocational discernment; workplace fulfillment; workplace support; Mapping the Workforce Study; Alumni Questionnaire

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Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers, Researchers (including IR/IE), Other Institutional Administration, Admissions and Recruitment Tidy Studios Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers, Researchers (including IR/IE), Other Institutional Administration, Admissions and Recruitment Tidy Studios

Beyond Congregations: New Study Reveals the Value of Theological Education for Diverse Contexts

Drawing on interviews with 10 experts across fields including chaplaincy, education, nonprofits, entrepreneurship, and advocacy, the article identifies formation, religious literacy, critical thinking, interpretation, and the ability to navigate difference as distinctive strengths of theological education. It also highlights areas where graduates may be underprepared—including leadership, organizational fluency, adaptability, communication, financial literacy, and technology—and encourages theological schools to make transferable competencies more explicit in curricula, learning outcomes, institutional partnerships, and recruitment materials.

KEYWORDS: theological education; non-congregational vocations; vocational formation; spiritual formation; religious literacy; transferable skills; leadership; critical thinking; pluralism; communication; financial literacy; technology; curriculum; educational effectiveness; career preparation; chaplaincy; nonprofit leadership; entrepreneurship

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Other Institutional Administration, Researchers (including IR/IE) Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Other Institutional Administration, Researchers (including IR/IE) Tidy Studios

Assessing Student Formation: A New Overview of Approaches and Challenges

A 2026 ATS Colloquy research spotlight that offers the most comprehensive overview to date of the ways that seminaries, theology departments, and divinity schools assess student formation.

KEYWORDS: open access / free access; assessment practices; Colloquy article; institutional mission; personal and spiritual formation; student formation; theological education; seminary; spirituality

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Institutional Senior Leaders, Other Institutional Administration, Faith Communities and Judicatories Tidy Studios Institutional Senior Leaders, Other Institutional Administration, Faith Communities and Judicatories Tidy Studios

Spiritual Formation at Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology of VUU

Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology's dean shares about their approach to spiritual formation, including mission, community, and assessment practices.

KEYWORDS: open access / free access; assessment of student development; ATS Student Data and Resources Consultation (2025); Black church; case study; ministry training; slide deck; spiritual formation; theological education

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios

Assessing Personal and Spiritual Formation at ATS

Jo Ann Deasy, ATS Director of Institutional Initiatives, revisits the 2018 Formation Assessment Survey on how member schools understand formation and put assessment into practice.

KEYWORDS: open access / free access; theological education; ATS Formation Assessment Survey (2018); definitions of formation; formation assessments and tools; ATS Student Data and Resources Consultation (2025); presentation (transcribed); newsletter article; study report

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Researchers (including IR/IE), Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Researchers (including IR/IE), Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios

Strengthening the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Tomorrow's Faith Leaders in Theological Education Settings

This (U.S.) federal report is based on an August 2023 expert panel concerning faith leader training, mental health, self-care, community partnership, and theological education.

KEYWORDS: open access / free access; clergy burnout; conference proceedings; faith leaders; mental health; resource compendium; self-care; seminary training; theological education; well-being

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