Globalization is deeply rooted in the history and tradition of UDTS, particularly over the past 50 years. This rich history is rooted in two of the classic marks of the church, oneness and catholicity. UDTS was housed in the Aquinas Institute, a Roman Catholic seminary and Dominican Friary. In fact, in the early 1980s all three seminaries in Dubuque (UDTS, Aquinas, and Wartburg, a Lutheran seminary) were housed in the Aquinas Institute and became known for its ecumenicity and global connections through students and visiting theological scholars, including Hans Kung who noted that the ecumenical dialogue he experienced in his visit to Dubuque was in of the richest he had encountered.
The faculty at UDTS in the 1970s into the dawn of the twenty-first embodied this rich global ecumenical diversity. Don Bloesch, Robert Healey, Richard Drummond, and Art Cochran were all faulty noted for their ecumenicity that reached across theological and ecclesial boundaries, across all of North American and around world, including deep embodiment in the North American Native American Christian expression through the Native American Program at UDTS.
This history continued with the appointment of Native American, Henry Fawcett, to the faculty as director of the Native American Program and Pastor to the students. His impact on UDTS, its faculty, and its students was immense. UDTS at appointed Bradley Longfield, a noted historian of American Church history continued this rich diverse global ecumenical history and tradition, as did the appointment of El Colyer to the faculty, an alumnus of UDTS who was a student while UDTS and Wartburg were housed in the Aquinas Institute.
This acknowledging and embodying of ecumenical Christian faith at UDTS has included a diversity of various of ecclesial and theological traditions in the faculty and student body. Many of these ecclesial traditions originated in Europe and were transferred to North American context arises on various countries and cultural location that have been transferred to the north American context where they continued to thrive, develop, and interact with one another. UDTS has been an ecumenical home and ecumenical incubator for interaction across diverse ecclesial and theological traditions.
UDTS is a PCUSA seminary with a robust United Methodist study program launched in dialogue with the noted African American United Methodist James Thomas Bishop of the Iowa Annual Conference. UDTS has been home to students in various Presbyterian and Methodist denominations along with students in the United Church of Christ, Baptist, Disciples of Christ, Charismatics in various mainline denominations, and Pentecostal denominations like the Assembly of Church.
Together this rich diversity with its global roots has enriched and infused the history and DNA of UDTS with an ecumenical expression and dialogue throughout the educational and communal life of the seminary over the past 50 years.