Louisville, Ky., Jan. 27, 2003—Officials from Bellarmine University and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (LPTS) announced they are joining forces to offer a new Master of Arts in Spirituality degree. The program will feature courses taught on both campuses by faculty from both institutions. In fact, the program’s first offering will be “Introductory Seminar in Spirituality,” a course team taught by The Rev. George Kilcourse of Bellarmine and Dr. Kathryn Johnson of LPTS.

The 30-hour degree program will be offered in a convenient part-time format, with seminars offered during the summers and elective courses offered during evening hours in the fall, January, and spring terms. The program will take two years to complete and culminate with a Bellarmine degree. Both LPTS and Bellarmine will begin recruiting students immediately.

“In addition to celebrating a new degree that will be beneficial to students,” said Bellarmine Provost John Oppelt. “I celebrate the collegiality of Bellarmine and the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. This type of cooperation is certainly unparalleled in the distinguished histories of these two fine institutions and should prove beneficial to the faculty and students associated to the program,” he said.

Louisville Seminary Dean Dianne Reistroffer extolled the ecumenical triumphs of the new alliance. “A new M.A. in Spirituality will bring together, in equal number, Protestant and Roman Catholic students and faculty in common seminars. Other elective courses will be taken on both campuses and will be open to students in all degree programs,” she said.

Students enrolling in the program are expected to be from both Protestant and Catholic backgrounds and from all types of vocations. While some students will pursue the M.A. in Spirituality as a professional degree or professional development program, most students are expected to undertake the degree for personal enhancement and lifelong education. The new program will be one of the few master’s degrees in spirituality in the country.

The initiation of this degree has also attracted grant support from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, a program of the Lilly Endowment, Inc., which awarded $54,000 to Bellarmine and LPTS to fund in-service training and collaborative teaching in spirituality. The grant proposal was co-authored by Kilcourse and Reistroffer and developed by a joint team of colleagues from both schools.

For more information about enrolling in the program, call the Bellarmine theology department at 502-452-8451; 800 274-4723 or LPTS Director of Admissions Marilyn Gamm at 502-895-3411, 800 264-1839.