Field Education

Welcome!

Field Education at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary lies at the confluence of students, seminary, and ministry sites. It is where students develop ministry skills, practice theological reflection, discern their call, and are mentored into ministry.
It is where congregations and other organizations come alongside a seminarian with welcome, feedback, support, discernment, and an invitation into mutual ministry.
It is where faculty and staff bring theological traditions and theories to bear upon the practices of ministry for the sake of the church and the world.

This work of exploration, integration and collaboration brings the Seminary curriculum and faculty, the seminarians, and the supervisors and their sites together for an intentionally creative, sometimes challenging, and predictably unpredictable time of learning, reflection, and growth.

The Role of the Field Education in a Student’s Experience

A carefully planned and faithfully executed Field Education experience fulfills the Seminary's mission to “equip people for ministries familiar and yet to unfold and communities present and yet to be gathered.”

The scholarship and intellectual inquiry of the classroom is joined with the prayer and worship, witness, reconciliation, justice, evangelism, and service that students observe and engage in at their site.

Through relationships, tasks, projects, and events, students gain hands-on experiences of participating in God’s ongoing mission in the world. Their understanding of the community of Christ is deepened and enlarged as they work side by side and reflect theologically with supervisors, peers, and others in ministries. They are resourced practically, skillfully, formationally, and theologically for the ministries awaiting them in the complex realities of the world that God loves.

The Role of the Field Education in a Congregation’s Experience

When a congregation, agency, organization, or campus hosts a Field Education experience, the community puts flesh and bones, faces and stories, on their commitment to raising up the next generation of leaders. By offering to be a site of learning, they become a part of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary community. They serve as a laboratory of sorts for ideas and practices that may still be unfolding but at the same time as a bearer of time-tested wisdom and tradition. By receiving a seminarian, whether someone known or previously unknown to their community, they have a chance to shape an individual’s journey in ministry. They also have occasion to reflect anew on their mission and their common life and work, thus finding themselves renewed and resourced as well.

The Role of the Field Education Office

The staff of the Field Education Office is eager to explore new placement opportunities through which students may best fulfill their vocational and educational needs and through which creative and engaging supervisors and placement sites may offer their gifts in the formation of ministerial excellence for the Church and the world. We will:

assess placement opportunities for breadth of experience and opportunities offered;
coordinate the placement and evaluation processes;
evaluate learning covenants and evaluations in light of established learning goals; and
provide resources, guidance, and training for students and supervisors.

THE FIELD EDUCATION EXPERIENCE AT-A-GLANCE

Required of all MAPS and MDiv candidates, a field education experience is typically done in the second year It starts in September and ends in May.
Students devote 10-12 hours a week, exclusive of travel to and from the site, for 29 weeks over the course of the academic year. The specific weeks are negotiated with supervisors but normally allow students breaks during exam periods.
Student pastors participate in the same program as other students; they find themselves a mentor for the year and develop goals for their continued learning and formation.
Students and supervisors develop a detailed learning agreement (the Learning Covenant) over the summer prior, coordinating the student’s objectives with the needs of the site and providing a basis for a shared evaluation of progress at later points in the year.
Learning covenants are designed primarily for the student’s education and formation and only secondarily for meeting the needs of the site.
Students and supervisors meet one hour a week throughout the year for supervision with theological reflection. They jointly submit evaluations at mid-year and year-end.
Students normally receive a monthly stipend (taxable and subject to Social Security) from the site.
Students enroll in a two-semester concurrent course sequence called FE210/FE220 for which they receive six academic credits when both semesters are completed and all program elements submitted.
Supervisors attend two seminars in supervision over the course of the year.

EXPECTATIONS OF SUPERVISORS IN FIELD EDUCATION

Field education supervisors:

are theologically educated and/or ordained. Normally they shall have served in ministry at their site for three years prior to hosting a student.
have the interest and capacity to supervise and mentor a student for an academic year, creating ministry opportunities appropriate to the seminarian’s status as student, providing guidance, regular feedback, and periodic evaluation.
have the support of their congregation or organization to give the time needed to the program.
do not normally relate to the student in some additional way such as pastor, counselor, or family member, preventing role confusion and conflicts of interest.
devote an hour a week to supervision with theological reflection on the practices of ministry.
develop a learning covenant with the student, complete a mid-year evaluation of the experience along with the student, and provide a summative final evaluation of the student’s learning, achievements, and growth.
facilitate the student’s completion of assignments from the concurrent field education course.

Benefits for supervisors during the year they serve in the program include:

library privileges at PTS.
auditing privileges, pending faculty approval, for courses in the PTS curriculum.
credit toward a course in the PTS Continuing Education program.
possibility of earning one CEU through supervision seminars.
complimentary lunch before each supervision seminar.
a community of colleagues and a chance to change a life.

Mission

In the Way of Jesus

Academic Rigor

Service to the Church and Community

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