Things are looking beautiful at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (CRCDS), the oldest Baptist seminary in the United States, which occupies a tree-filled campus on a hill overlooking Rochester, New York. The school is the product of a merger of Colgate (founded 1817) and Rochester (founded 1850) seminaries, which came together in 1928. A theological institute for women, the Baptist Missionary Training School, joined the institution in 1961, and a fourth school, Crozer Theological Seminary (the alma mater of Martin Luther King Jr.), joined in 1970.
This year, the divinity school announced that it has sold its historic campus, which includes six buildings on 24 acres, for an undisclosed price. The institution will remain in its current location until 2018, at which time it will move its operations to another location in Rochester.
According to the divinity school’s president, Dr. Marvin A. McMickle, the move coincides with broader trends in the landscape of theological education — trends that suggest that a smaller, more flexible, more affordable space is preferable to a more expensive campus with landmark structures. “This offer will provide us with the resources necessary to establish CRCDS in a new location that will meet our needs and the needs of our strategic plan going forward,” he says.
