Allen University began offering formal religious studies in 1880 via its Dickerson Seminary and continued to do so for more than eighty years. As an educational constituent of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church of South Carolina, the Institution has continued to offer non-credit learning experiences for members of the clergy within the denomination, and an undergraduate degree program for any interested students. The inspired expansion to graduate level study in this Allen tradition will be housed under the rubric Dickerson-Green Seminary, retaining the Dickerson name, combined with the presiding prelate of the 7th District, Bishop Samuel L. Green, Sr.

Bishop William Fisher Dickerson

Bishop Samuel L. Green, Sr.

The original seminary (circa 1905)​