Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Program

Communication, MA

First Advisor

Desrene Vernon-Brebnor

Second Advisor

Bruce Bauer

Third Advisor

Dwayne Cheddar

Abstract

The Andrews University Theological Seminary has a long standing history of attracting students from around the world seeking to acquire a Masters of Divinity (M.Div.). However, it is unclear how students of various backgrounds experience the seminary’s diversity. This study conducted an online survey with M.Div. students to examine the seminary’s performance according to the respondents as a whole and based on different ethnicities. The first hypothesis was that students of various ethnicities experienced the incorporation of diversity into the curriculum differently. The second hypothesis was that seminary events did not reflect the diversity of the student body and were experienced differently based on ethnicity. The survey assessing the seminary was centered on these six categories: demographic profiles, the students’ willingness to discuss ethnicity and culture, diversity of programs, diversity of the curriculum, respect and acceptance, and culture of inclusion. Respondents answered questions derived from each category to provide an overall evaluation of the seminary’s diversity. A one-way ANOVA test was used to treat the data. The results supported the two hypotheses. Students from different backgrounds do not share the same experience of how well the seminary manages diversity.

Comments

The author completed a dual degree program that included the MA in Communication from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Master of Divinity from the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary.

Subject Area

Andrews University. Theological Seminary; Cultural pluralism; Multicultural education

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/theses/112/

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