For Immediate Release

Princeton Seminary Begins 194th Academic Year

Princeton, NJ, September 9, 2005– Princeton Theological Seminary will begin its 194th academic year with a convocation on Tuesday, September 13 at 8:00 p.m. in Miller Chapel. President Iain R. Torrance will address the faculty and student body in remarks titled “For Helen Katherine Jones.” Classes will begin the morning of September 14, when the community celebrates the Sacrament of Holy Communion at 10:00 a.m., officiated by President Torrance. Associate Professor of Old Testament Jacqueline Lapsley will preach the sermon.

Each year the Seminary’s entering class includes a number of international students. This year’s class includes 30 new foreign nationals, who were chosen from 98 applications from 23 foreign countries. This represents one of the largest groups of foreign students to attend Princeton in recent years. They come from Ghana, Myanmar, the Philippines, Korea, Kenya, Taiwan, Germany, Croatia, Brazil, Hungary, India, Argentina, Canada, Egypt, Denmark, Great Britain and Thailand.

This year’s class of 139 new Master of Divinity students were admitted from an applicant pool of 415 candidates, according to Victor Aloyo, director of vocations. “This is the third year we have had more than 400 applicants, and that allowed us to be very selective,” he says. Of the 139, 77 are Presbyterian; 76 members of the class are male and 63 are female.

The racial ethnic diversity of the applicant pool and the entering M.Div. class has also increased. Twenty African American students, admitted from an applicant pool of thirty-nine, will matriculate. Eighteen Asian Americans (from a pool of thirty-three) and nine Hispanic Americans (from a pool of thirteen) are members of the class.

The youngest entering M.Div. student is 21 and the oldest 51. Other denominations represented in the class include American Baptist, Southern Baptist, Evangelical Lutheran, United Methodist, United Church of Christ, Episcopalian, and Reformed Church in America, among others.

Princeton Theological Seminary, founded in 1812 to educate ministers and leaders for the church, is the largest and one of the oldest Presbyterian theological institutions in the United States. It offers five graduate degree programs (masters and doctoral level) and has more than 10,000 graduates serving the church throughout the world.