Rev. David Vásquez-Levy, DMin
President, Professor of Homiletics
Leads Pacific School of Religion and, alongside Kwaray’s executive director, tells the origin story behind Kwaray on the PSR Collective podcast.
Unafraid since 1866
A progressive seminary on Holy Hill
Pacific School of Religion sits two blocks above UC Berkeley, on Holy Hill alongside other seminaries and institutes. Founded in 1866, PSR brings rigorous theological study together with radical inclusion and progressive Christian faith.
Visit or write 1798 Scenic Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94709 (510) 849-8231 admissions@psr.edu
PSR is a founding member of the Graduate Theological Union, the interreligious consortium of Bay Area seminaries and institutes two blocks downhill, so a PSR degree can draw on coursework across the whole GTU.
Founded in 1866
160 years of progressive theological education
Since its Congregational founding in 1866, PSR has helped expand who can study, teach, lead, and shape religious life.
1866
Founded by Congregational ministers and laypeople as an institution of the people, a child of the churches. From the start it enfranchised Chinese immigrants, well ahead of the Exclusion Act.
1887
The school’s first Japanese student graduates. Students from across the Pacific and around the world have been part of PSR’s story since its first decades.
1895
Enrolls women during the heart of the suffrage movement, twenty-five years before the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteed women the vote.
1916
Renamed from Pacific Theological Seminary to Pacific School of Religion, reflecting its nondenominational status.
1923
Founds the Badè Museum of Biblical Archaeology.
1942
President Arthur C. McGiffert and Professor John C. Bennett publicly oppose the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.
1950
Georgia Harkness becomes PSR’s first tenured woman professor and the first female full professor of theology at a U.S. Protestant seminary.
1960s
PSR helps found the Graduate Theological Union, an ecumenical consortium of Bay Area seminaries and institutes.
1972
Alum Bill Johnson becomes the first openly gay man ordained in a mainline denomination (UCC).
2000
Founds the Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion (CLGS), the first seminary-based LGBTQ center.
2001
Founds the PANA Institute for Leadership Development and Study of Pacific and Asian North American Religion.
2014
Founds the Ignite Institute to bridge spiritual formation and practical leadership.
2022
Receives a $5 million Lilly Endowment grant to reimagine theological education through a new digital learning platform.
2024
Launches Kwaray, the technology platform for engaging learners in seminary and faith-based education.
2025
Launches PSR Collective, PSR’s own presence on Kwaray, offering live and self-paced courses to rising faith leaders.
Life on Holy Hill
A campus shaped by community
Centers and institutes
Four centers with distinct traditions
Each center brings scholarship, practice, and community to a different part of PSR’s mission.
- Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion (CLGS) · Founded in 2000 as the first seminary-based academic center for LGBTQ studies, CLGS works in advocacy, education, research, and community-building to advance the wellbeing of LGBTQ people and their faith communities.
- Ignite Institute · PSR’s center of Wisdom-Based Leadership, founded in 2014 to bridge spiritual formation with practical leadership training for changemakers.
- Theological Education for Leadership (TEL) · A 38-year-old program offering flexible, accessible theological education year-round for clergy, laity, and spiritual seekers, structured as the Congregational Renewal Certificate or Ministry Leadership Certificate.
- Badè Museum of Biblical Archaeology · Founded in 1923, the Badè uses the ancient past (including the excavations at Tell en-Nasbeh) to examine contemporary questions of gender, patriarchy, and colonization in religious history.
Leadership
Who leads PSR, PSR Collective, and Kwaray
Susan Abraham, ThD
Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Faculty, Professor of Theology and Post-Colonial Cultures
Teaches PSR Collective’s Theological Thinking course and oversees academic affairs across PSR’s degree programs.
Byron Chung
Vice President of Institutional Growth, Faculty Associate in Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Leads institutional growth at PSR and is part of the Ignite Institute team building Kwaray’s Wisdom-Based Leadership courses.
Bernard Schlager, PhD
Associate Professor of Historical and Cultural Studies, Executive Director of the Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion
Directs PSR’s Certificate of Sexuality and Religion and teaches the Christian History and Social Change course on PSR Collective.
Tricia Mills
Executive Director, Kwaray and PSR Collective
Leads the Kwaray platform and PSR Collective, the bridge between PSR’s degree programs and its open courses for changemakers.
Cindy Liu
Executive Director, Kwaray
Leads Kwaray, and co-tells the platform’s origin story with PSR’s president.
Alicia Paullin
Director of Academic Strategy and Curriculum Design, Kwaray
Supports PSR Collective partners in building high-quality digital learning resources for rising faith leaders.
Dena Boeddeker
Director of Operations, Kwaray
Directs day-to-day operations and production for the courses and cohorts delivered on PSR Collective.
Accreditation and affiliation
Accredited study, broadened by the GTU
PSR is a founding member of the Graduate Theological Union, the interreligious consortium of more than twenty Bay Area seminaries and institutes exploring relationships among Western Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam. MTS and MDiv students can take GTU courses toward their PSR degree.
Distance education for the MDiv is available for most students but is pending WSCUC approval; the DMin is designed entirely as distance learning, and the MTS can be completed fully online. Full policy, governance, and program detail live in the academic catalog.