An institution of higher learning unlike any other, the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley brings together scholars of the world’s diverse religions and wisdom traditions to advance new knowledge, seek fresh insight, and collaborate on solutions. We carry out our work by:
- Educating scholars for vocations devoted to study and service
- Equipping leaders for a world of diverse religions and cultures
- Teaching patterns of faith that encourage justice and care of the planet
- Serving as an educational and theological resource for local communities, the nation, and the world
The GTU is the most comprehensive center for the graduate study of religion in North America. With a focus on interreligious and interdisciplinary perspectives, GTU faculty and students engage the world’s great religions and wisdom traditions in contemporary contexts. The GTU educates innovative leaders for the academy, religious organizations, and the nonprofit sector, equipping scholars to embody the critical thinking, ethical frameworks, compassionate values, and spiritual foundations essential to building a more just, peaceful, and sustainable world.
More than a school of theology, the GTU is a union of schools and programs that, together, represent the world’s major religions in collaboration. More than a graduate school, the GTU is an enterprise that cultivates the highest scholarly standards and provides opportunities to translate scholarship into solutions with impact. The GTU provides a unique community where scholars and practitioners from across the world's great religions gather for academic study of their own and of other traditions and disciplines.
Unique Degree Concentrations
Ranging from Aesthetics to Yoga
Core Doctoral Faculty Members
From diverse faiths and fields
Faculty Across the Consortium
To guide your academic career
47% of GTU Ph.D. Students are Women
Enrolled in 2020-2021
Doctoral Students
Studying in the GTU Ph.D. program in 2020-21
Faith Traditions
Available for study through GTU's many programs, centers, and schools
Diversity at the GTU
9% Asian/Pacific Islander
6% Black
1% Hispanic
1% Native American/Alaskan Native
34% White
11% Unknown/Other
39% Non-Resident Foreign Students
Among GTU Ph.D Students 2020-21
Member Schools and Academic Centers
More than twenty member schools, academic centers, programs, and affiliates join together to make the GTU an unparalleled place for interdisciplinary and interreligious thought, study, and practice.
Our History
Discover how a unique ecumenical partnership among several Bay Area seminaries in the early 1960s grew to become a hub of innovative multi-religious scholarship for the twenty-first century.
Skylight
The symbol of our union takes inspiration from the skylight at the heart of the GTU library, and symbolizes intersecting paths and converging ideas, expressing the illuminating, collaborative spirit of the GTU.
Land Acknowledgement
The Graduate Theological Union values the world’s diverse religions and wisdom traditions. In a spirit of appreciation and respect, we acknowledge that our Berkeley campus stands on the ancestral land of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people, in the territory of Xyčun (Huichin), previously the land of the sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County. Today, the land continues to be important to our neighbors from the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, as well as Verona Band descendants.
The GTU makes this Land Acknowledgement Statement to recognize the Indigenous Peoples as traditional stewards of this land, and to affirm the enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous Peoples and their traditional territories.