Beeson Divinity School

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Administration

Timothy F. George, Ralph W. Beeson Dean and Professor
David Hogg, Associate Dean for Academics
Burch R. Barger, Administrative Dean
Thomas L. Fuller, Director, Ministry Leadership Development, Placement, and Assessment
James C. Pounds, Jr., Director of the Extension Division
Mark A. Searby, Director of Doctor of Ministry Studies and Student Services
Kurt D. Selles, Director of Global Center and Associate Professor
Vickie Gaston, Curator of Hodges Chapel and Coordinator of Spiritual Life
Carolyn Lankford, Advancement Officer

History

On February 9, 1988, the Board of Trustees of Samford University authorized the establishment of a School of Divinity beginning in the 1988-89 academic year. In one sense this action fulfilled the founding purpose of the University adopted in 1841, which provided for “the establishment of a Theological Institution, connected with the college hereinafter established.”

In December 1988, the Samford Board of Trustees voted to name the school the Beeson School of Divinity in honor of Ralph Waldo Beeson and his late father, John Wesley Beeson. Ralph Beeson provided the largest gift from a living individual in Samford history to establish the only divinity school at that time at a Baptist college or university in the nation.

In its first year, Beeson School of Divinity secured the dean, four full-time faculty, and two adjunctive faculty, and enrolled 32 students.

The School of Divinity, like other entities of Samford University, is open to persons from all denominations. The confessional context in which the faculty teaches is defined by the Baptist Faith and Message Statement of 1963. The school offers quality theological education in a Christian university setting from an explicitly evangelical perspective. Non-Baptist faculty teach in accordance with their own convictions on matters of denominational distinctives.