Scholarship Updates

Andover Newton, along with Yale Divinity School and Berkeley Divinity School, has made scholarships a top priority for fundraising. We want students to enter ministry unencumbered by graduate school debt and to be able to make their career decisions based on sacred call.

Andover Newton Seminary invites our individual and community partners to join us in addressing this priority, recognizing the impact it will make on clergy and the congregations in which they serve. Seminary debt is a crisis we must overcome, and we can only do it with our faithful companions who have journeyed with us through so much.

Though students already benefit from endowed scholarships that were established years and even decades ago, donors can contribute additional funds to these existing scholarships at any time. If you see that Andover Newton is actively fundraising for specific scholarships, this does not mean that these are the only scholarships that can be contributed to. In fact, Andover Newton currently has 87 named, endowed scholarships. Some of these are named after faculty, staff, and graduates who you may be familiar with. Making a gift to one of these existing scholarships not only provides student support, but it also offers tribute to a member of the Andover Newton community who made or is making a deep and abiding impact on the institution and the church.

During Fiscal Year 2020, Andover Newton was actively fundraising for two newly named scholarships…

The Davida Foy Crabtree Scholarship

United Church of Christ (UCC) minister Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree has provided extraordinary service to the United Church of Christ and Andover Newton. Most recently, she was Interim Vice President for Advancement at Andover Newton Theological School. Prior positions include serving as Interim and Acting Conference Minister in Florida and Missouri Mid-South Conferences, and as Conference Minister for Connecticut and Southern California. She also served as Senior Consultant to the Collegium of Officers of the UCC and as a local church pastor in Connecticut. The Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree was not aware that her mother had created a scholarship in her honor until her mother’s death. “If my mother had had any idea a woman could be ordained, she would have gone to seminary herself. She was always working to build up the church, and to improve public education and her community,” Crabtree said.

When the campaign was launched to create this scholarship, the goal was $75,000. We were able to reach this goal in 2020 and celebrate with Davida this wonderful tribute to her leadership. Like any endowed fund, a donor can still make a contribution to this scholarship. More information can be found on Andover Newton’s website.

The Birmingham Drummond Scholarship Fund

In honor of the schools’ first woman leader in its 212-year history, Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School created an endowed scholarship to fund tuition for Andover Newton students at YDS who identify as women and who are called to serve faith communities. The scholarship is named for Sarah Birmingham Drummond, Founding Dean of Andover Newton, ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, and educator in and writer on ministerial leadership.

When this campaign was launched during the beginning of Dean Drummond’s time as executive leader of Andover Newton, the original goal was $250,000. Before the end of her first year as dean, we reached this goal as more gifts continued to be made. So, in honor of the one-year anniversary a new goal of $500,000 was set. At this level, a scholarship covers full tuition for one student for a year. Thanks to a very generous pledge from a trustee of Andover Newton, we have reached this new goal and will be pleased to offer this full tuition scholarship to future students of Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School.

If you are interested in making an additional gift to this fund in honor of Dean Drummond’s leadership, please find more information on our website.

Announcing a new tribute scholarship…

During Andover Newton’s Alumni/ae Convocation, Sarah Drummond and Ned Allyn Parker announced a newly created scholarship honoring this year’s Spirit of the Hill recipient, Rev. Dr. Thomas F. Freeman (BD’42). This was the first year Andover Newton awarded the Spirit of the Hill posthumously, and in lieu of a gift to the recipient, the staff and trustees created a scholarship as a tribute to the honoree.

Rev. Dr. Freeman left a legacy to be sure. He taught a young Martin Luther King, Jr. at Morehouse College and soon-to-be state representative Barbara Jordan at Texas Southern University. He was hand-picked by award-winning film star Denzel Washington to coach the actors in “The Great Debaters” – a film nominated for best picture at the Golden Globes. For Dr. Freeman, education was ministry and ministry was education. The two were inextricably linked, and he dazzled in the pulpit and at the podium.

To learn more about Rev. Dr. Freeman and the scholarship created in his name, please visit the Andover Newton website.

Additionally, the Trustees of Andover Newton Seminary have designated $50,000 to be used as a dollar-for-dollar matching gift challenge for the Thomas F. Freeman Scholarship Fund. If you give today, your gift will be doubled.

The Impact of Gifts on Tuition

Thanks to donor generosity and great progress toward fundraising goals, students will pay and borrow less than they did five years ago. Over that time, tuition has risen only eight percent, while the standard scholarship package has gone up by 33 percent. As a result, the annual cost of attending YDS is now $2,580 less than it was for the 2013-14 academic year.

Scholarships at Andover Newton Seminary

As a partner on the Yale Divinity School Quadrangle, Andover Newton follows the same fundraising policies as Yale Divinity School and Berkeley Divinity School. Scholarships are designated in the following ways:

Scholarships at the…

• $50,000 level can be named by the donor.

• $250,000 level can be named and given preferences
  (e.g. – preference will be given to a student preparing to lead in a historically Black congregation).

• $500,000 level cover full tuition for one student each year.

• $850,000 level offer comprehensive coverage of tuition, books, fees, and living expenses.