Yale Religion in Higher Education Program Records

Though fragmentary and of uncertain provenance, this collection provides valuable documentation of the Religion in Higher Education program at Yale, primarily from the 1920s through 1966. The files were found in a YDS basement storage area and it is not entirely clear whether they were all from one source.

Series I is designated at J.Edward Dirks Files and contains documentation relating both to his work at Yale and as Secretary of the University Commission of the World Student Christian Federation. There are also J. Edward Dirks papers in YDSL Record Group No. 30, Miscellaneous Personal Papers Collection. Series II, Course Materials, covers the era when Clarence Shedd was the primary faculty member at YDS in the area of religion in higher education. An additional 36 linear feet of Clarence Prouty Shedds Papers are found in YDSL Record Group No. 35. The Resource Materials in Series III date from both the Shedd and Dirks eras. They were most likely from a central file in the Yale office of the religion in higher education program.

In addition to their relation to other papers of Dirks and Shedd, these records relate to several other collections at the Yale Divinity Library, including the Archives of the World Student Christian Federation (YDSL RG 46); the Archives of The Danforth Study of Campus Ministries (YDSL RG 62), which was based at YDS and directed by Kenneth Underwood 1962-1966, the Archives of the Religious Education Association (YDSL RG 74), the Archives of the National Association of College and University Chaplains and Directors of Religious Life (YDSL RG 167), as well as the records of various iterations of the North American student Christian movement.