Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
Claremont School of Theology is proud to invite applications to our new Doctor of Spirituality (SpD) program, designed especially for early- and mid-career professionals who are called to bring spiritual practice into their work and leadership. We particularly invite applications from all who believe we have the power to transform our leadership models and our world when we pay attention, seek to be astonished, and tell about it. The SpD is not defined as a ministry degree; however, it conforms to CST’s history and calling through its specific emphasis on the spiritual nature of contemporary compassion-based leadership, and through its goal of educating students who will become agents of transformation and healing in local communities, schools, non-profit institutions, religious and spiritual organizations, and the world at large.
To the best of our knowledge, the CST Doctor of Spirituality is the first of its kind, reflecting CST’s commitment to innovation and to meeting the needs of diverse groups of change-leaders.
Are you called? Read on…
SpD Program Overview
CST’s Doctor of Spirituality (SpD) is a fully online 36-credit professional doctorate degree designed for students seeking to develop and expand their leadership skills, with a specific emphasis on the spiritual nature of contemporary compassion-based leadership. The degree targets early- and mid-career professionals who are called to bring spiritual practice into their work and leadership (health care providers, artists, civic leaders, spiritual directors, community organizers, educators, social workers, etc.) and who will become agents of transformation healing in local communities, schools, non-profit institutions, religious organizations, and the world at large. The SpD reflects CST’s international leadership in developing innovative doctoral programs that are academically rigorous, culturally informed, and transformative, offering students the tools they need to lead organizations committed to compassion, change, service and justice.
2025 Spiritual Direction Cohort
The degree design is cohort-based, with themed cohorts targeted to specific cohort goals and interests. Under the leadership of Dr. Frank Rogers, the initial 2025 cohort will be focused on spiritual direction, designed to enhance the skills of trained spiritual direction practitioners and to develop professional spiritual direction skills for those students who seek to become spiritual directors or to engage the theories and practices of spiritual direction in their leadership roles.
Future cohorts under consideration include climate-justice, arts-based activism, community organizing, socio-spiritual entrepreneurship, health care, migration, and professional coaching
Compassion is the means to becoming most deeply human.
SpD Learning Outcomes:
Students who successfully complete the Doctor of Spirituality will be able to:
- Articulate an interreligious and intercultural understanding of spirituality, with attention to their own personal and professional ethical commitments.
- Integrate knowledge and practice of spirituality that is grounded in compassion, and is appropriate to diverse leadership, religious and cultural contexts, in their personal and professional leadership.
- Develop capacity for critical and constructive theological reflection regarding content and practices of leadership and conflict resolution, with a specific emphasis on the spiritual nature of contemporary compassion-based leadership.
- Demonstrate advanced mastery of the theory, skills, and resources for spiritually-based and healing leadership and conflict resolution in various settings, with in-depth emphasis on their area of concentration.
Curriculum (Spiritual Direction Cohort):
| Courses | Credits | Cumulative |
| Introductory Courses – 4 Credits | ||
| Resources and Documentation for Doctoral Students Intensive | 0 | 0 |
| Research Methods (Study and Teaching of Contemplative Practices) | 4 | 4 |
| Core Curriculum – 12 credits | ||
| Spiritual Renewal Through Engaged Compassion | 4 | 8 |
| Interspiritual Approaches to Visionary Leadership | 4 | 12 |
| Compassion Based Approaches to Communities in Conflict | 4 | 16 |
| Concentration Focus Courses – 16 Credits in spiritual direction, or in compassion-based leadership and/or IFS-related areas for trained spiritual directors) | ||
| Concentration Focus Course 1 | 4 | 20 |
| Concentration Focus Course 2 | 4 | 24 |
| Concentration Focus Course 3 | 4 | 28 |
| Concentration Focus Course 4 | 4 | 32 |
| Summative Project (1 credit for proposal, 1 credit for first draft, and 2 credits for final submission) | 4 | 36 |
Prerequisites:
- Bachelor’s degree from accredited institution (applicants without this degree may demonstrate equivalency by completing a prerequisite 4-course/12-credit series of core theological/spiritual competency courses)
- Experience equivalent to one (1) year of graduate studies in a relevant field (as determined by concentration area faculty)
- Two years of practitioner/leadership experience
- Student desire and ability, as documented in the student’s application, to incorporate diverse spiritual/contemplative sensibilities and skills into their vocational settings, practices, and perspectives.
Core Courses(Shared with DMin students):
- Spiritual Renewal Through Engaged Compassion
- Interspiritual Approaches to Visionary Leadership
- Compassion Based Approaches to Communities in Conflict
Concentration Focus Courses Examples:
Example 1 – For students who want to concentrate in spiritual direction training:
- Compassion-based Spiritual Direction
- IFS as a Spiritual Path
- Spiritual Direction Practicum I
- Spiritual Direction Practicum II
Example 2 – For students concentrating in spiritual direction who are already spiritual directors:
- Compassion-based Spiritual Direction
- IFS immersion
- Compassion-based Supervision of Spiritual Direction
- Spiritual Direction Practicum
Want to learn more?
Reach out to the Admissions Counselor for this program, Elizabeth Strowbridge, by emailing estrowbridge@cst.edu or by using the below link to submit an inquiry form.