The Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, now known as Seminary of the Southwest, was launched in 1951 by Bishop John E. Hines to train clergy for a booming postwar church, and it remains one of only two Episcopal seminaries west of the Mississippi. Its compact campus sits on a few leafy acres just north of the University of Texas, between the Hyde Park and North University neighborhoods. This short walk visits a National Register mansion, the 1960 chapel, the library and a marker to the founding bishop, then strolls a few blocks west to the Presbyterian seminary that hosted the school's very first classes. The full loop is under a mile.
About this site
Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest is a private college or university in Austin, Travis County. It is one of 8 degree-granting colleges and universities TexasRoam maps in Travis County.
The site sits at 30.2931, -97.7326 near Austin. The nearest cataloged historic site is Rather House (historic place), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include John Elbridge Hines, Worrell-Ettlinger House, and Cox--Craddock House.
The Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest was started in Austin in 1951 by John E. Hines, then bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of Texas, because the church's existing seminaries could not absorb every candidate for ordination in a boom period. Its first classes met on September 1, 1951, under the sponsorship of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, with three clergy teaching and Gray M. Blandy, the Episcopal chaplain at the University of Texas, serving as the first dean. A family gift of five acres near the Presbyterian seminary let the first buildings go up beginning in 1954, Christ Chapel with its floor-to-ceiling hand-blown stained glass followed in 1960, and the gift of the historic Rather House in the early 1970s rounded out the campus. Facing lower enrollment in the 1970s, the school launched a Center for Hispanic Ministries, and it now also grants master's degrees in spiritual formation, spiritual direction and clinical mental health counseling. In September 2023 it completed its rebuilt library, named for Bishop Dena A. Harrison. Still chartered under its original name, it operates as Seminary of the Southwest, one of the accredited seminaries of the Episcopal Church.
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