Paul Singer

USA TODAY

Corrections and clarifications: A prior version of this article misspelled the name of Yale Divinity School Dean Greg Sterling.

The Jewish New Year arrived this fall with an unusual milestone: The University of Chicago Divinity School began its semester with a Jewish dean for the first time in its 125-year history.

In fact, Dean Laurie Zoloth is apparently the first Jewish dean of any university-based U.S. divinity school, according to the Association of Theological Schools.

“We normally think of Jews as deeply integrated in the American academic system, so it is unusual that there is a discipline or an area where one could be the first Jewish academic anything,” Zoloth told USA TODAY.

But divinity schools are a bit different than other academic programs. Such schools were aligned with a certain denomination, she noted, and were originally conceived as pathways to ordination for clergy of that faith. But many programs have shed their denomination as they have moved to focus on the academic study of religion. Seminaries are a separate category of education, generally unconnected to another institution, and designed specifically to train and ordain clergy.

Some university divinity schools continue to be expressly tied to a specific faith — for instance the website at the Duke Divinity School, another top program, describes its program as providing "a strong foundation for Christian ministry and leadership, ensuring that students are prepared to serve the church and the world."

By contrast, the website for the University of Chicago Divinity School describes its program as is “a tough-minded, sprawling, rigorous and dynamic conversation about what religion is and why understanding it is so vitally important.”

Greg Sterling, dean of Yale Divinity School, said “I still define (Yale) as a Christian divinity school — which doesn’t mean the only thing we do is train ministers… but we certainly take that with real seriousness.” Sterling said Zoloth’s arrival at Chicago is part of the evolution over time toward religious study, which is more purely academic than “lived.”

“Chicago is a first-rate academic institution,” he said, “but their basic orientation is different.”

Chicago does also train clergy: Zoloth notes that the Chicago school also has a top-rated Master of Divinity program that trains clerical leaders across different faith traditions.

Zoloth said her appointment “tells us that what it means to study religion has opened up into a much broader terrain, and that many of us are now welcome in the academy where this study is pursued and I’m excited to be here.”

Chicago’s choice of an Orthodox Jewish woman to lead its renowned divinity school is “a sign of the pluralism and ecumenicism that is remaking American society” said David Ellenson, former president of Hebrew Union College and a “tangible sign of the historic tranformation” in religious studies as well.

Ellenson noted that the nation as a whole is growing in its religious diversity, which is opening new opportunities in leadership for people of diverse faiths. Zoloth said there has been a broad expansion of religious studies in the U.S. with “a great new generation of people across many different traditions — Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism — so there is enormous growth that is possible throughout our field of religions studies.”

Presumably, she said, a Muslim will one day head a major U.S. divinity school. “There could be anybody who is devoted to the serious academic study of religion and that includes anyone who takes religious traditions seriously and understands themselves as a scholar of these traditions.”