Members

President,

Global Ministries University,

San Jose, California, USA

Prof. Gerald Grudzen is President of Global Ministries University, an online graduate religious studies program based in San Jose, California, with affiliates in Kenya and Kochi, India. This program was founded in 2001 to encourage the training of men and women in interfaith dialogue and understanding and to involve both men and women in religious leadership globally.

Prof. Grudzen has taught Philosophy and Comparative Religions at San Jose City College, San Jose State University, Gavilan College, and the University of Phoenix Online. He has worked extensively in the dialogue between Christianity and Islam and participated in interfaith conferences and educational travel programs in Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, Thailand, and India. He and his wife, Marita Grudzen, established the first interfaith chapter of the Maryknoll Affiliates in 2019, based in Mombasa, Kenya, with Christian and Muslim members.

He has earned graduate degrees in theology and ministry from Maryknoll Seminary in New York and the Master of Philosophy and PhD degrees from Columbia University in the History of Islam and Christianity.

Prof. Grudzen is the author or coauthor of seven books dealing with the history of Christianity and Islam, past and present. He received a Templeton award for his study and publication of Spirituality and Science: Greek-Judeo-Christian and Islamic Perspectives.  He has led or participated in interfaith training programs in the US, Kenya, India, Thailand, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Nigeria. In 2004, he received the Global Peace Award from the Buddhist Council of America based in Detroit, Michigan, where he grew up and attended Sacred Heart Seminary College.