Community Building
We have a thriving student organization community! Please read about these organizations below.
yOUR VOICE. YOUR community.
The Student Government Association is the official representative body of students advocating for an inclusive and loving community at Columbia Theological Seminary. The SGA is composed of elected student body officers, elected class officers, and representatives from each campus organization. Working together, the SGA seeks to better community life on campus through sustainable programs, advocacy, and campus events.
The SGA partners with the faculty, staff, and administration of the seminary to serve as lines of communication with the student body in the hopes of fostering an informed and cared-for community. There are lots of ways to get involved, from serving as an elected officer, to volunteering for a faculty committee and even starting a new campus organization. Come join one of the monthly meetings and offer your voice on issues within our community. All students are welcome!
Contact Kathryn Threadgill to be connected to a representative of the SGA.
Click here to see the SGA Constitution
Click here to review the SGA Operations Manual
A space for those students whose background heritage is linked to and influenced by the African diaspora and those who support the advancement and celebration of this heritage at CTS.
The Asian Student Association is an organization that strives to promote understanding, foster dialogue, and offer an affinity space for the Asian, Asian American, and Pacific American students at Columbia Theological Seminary. We seek to educate and address key issues and topics that affect AAPIA seminarians at Columbia and beyond through fellowship dinners, educational events, peer support, mentorship from AAPIA faculty, as well as networking opportunities with the larger AAPIA community in the Atlanta and Decatur metropolitan area.
ASA is currently seeking volunteers to facilitate its programming for this academic year. Please email Rev. Katie Ricks if you are interested in this opportunity.
Following a week of class, this organization meets off campus in order to engage in open, theologically informed discussions about weekly events, national affairs, or our own curiosity. Each week’s discussion focuses on a provocative question sent out in advance, and all members of the CTS community are welcome. The atmosphere is laid back, appetizers are provided, and ordering alcoholic beverages is permitted.
HALA exists to provide a safe and brave space for students of Hispanic or Latinx heritage, and their allies, a structured environment for personal, spiritual, and academic growth in the context of seminary education and life in ministry. HALA provides a space for students of Hispanic and Latinx heritage to expand on their own and with fellow seminarians, experience and understanding of these communities in Atlanta, the US, and worldwide; and to foster imaginative and resilient leaders in current and future Hispanic and Latinx inclusive communities, faith-based and otherwise.
HALA is currently seeking volunteers to facilitate its programming for this academic year. Please email Rev. Katie Ricks if you are interested in this opportunity.
Imago Dei seeks to promote the welcome and inclusion of all people, especially those who identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community and their allies. Imago Dei seeks to help the CTS community engage with issues surrounding inclusion on campus, in our churches, and in the world. We host events and forums to create conversation between people of different world viewpoints around gender and sexuality and train organizational leaders to be effective in creating safe spaces.
We are a group of staff, students, families, and faculty who are interested in and dedicated to Shaping Attention to God’s Earth (SAGE) in our personal practices, on and throughout our campus, and into the wider world. We hope to make the conversation of sustainability louder on campus and to transform life on campus to counter-culturally value materials, earth, bodies, food, and each other as valuable, gracious gifts from God. In lifting up each other’s dreams, we do various projects in the CTS community garden and on campus involving food justice, spirituality, and stewardship.
The cost of leasing a plot is $10 per semester, which contributes to SAGE funding, and 5 hours of community garden work per month, which can be done outside of community work days and is to be self-reported. There is no cost to lease a garden plot, but we do ask that plot holders be active participants in the gardening community.
Learn more about the garden here.
Seminary Families provides opportunities for fellowship among those who come to Columbia Theological Seminary with their partners and/or children. The group is open to all and meets regularly for Bible study, dinner out, and other fun activities. Family-friendly get-togethers range from cookouts to bowling nights to holiday celebrations and beyond. We invite all spouses, partners, and children to join us!
Women in Ministry (WIM) is an organization designed to empower women in every aspect of ministry, creating lifelong relationships through encouragement and shared experience. WIM facilitates events that benefit spiritual growth, such as bible studies, spiritual formation groups, and retreats.
