Welcome to the 2022 Interfaith Mission Service
Annual Celebration and Awards Conference
The Rev. Dr. Joan R. Harrell is an ordained American Baptist clergywoman, womanist public theologian, author, journalism and media scholar, and the inaugural Director of Inclusive Excellence for the Auburn College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University in Auburn. In addition, she is a Cornell University certified leader in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Dr. Harrell is a graduate of Stephens College in Columbia, MO, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City, the Morehouse School of Religion at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, and Chicago Theological Seminary in Chicago. Her dissertation, A Womanist Critique: How the Intersectionality of Media, Racism, Sexism, and Xenophobia Perpetuates Oppression in the Church and Society undergirds her call to ministry for God’s justice and love.
She worked as a local and international journalist in Britain and the United States, a public affairs practitioner in the jungle of South America near the Essequibo River, the longest river of Guyana, and was humbled and honored to teach many of the intergenerational descendants of the United States Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee how to tell their narratives within the context of their personal lens which allows them to be humanized and not stereotyped as marginalized medical guinea pigs.
Before entering academia her journalism career afforded her opportunities at national broadcast news networks and local television markets as an award-winning journalist including news anchor at ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates in GA, SC, and MO and the ABC News Bureau in London England, CBS News Bureau and CSPAN in Washington, DC and Bill Moyers for PBS in New York City.
As the Senior Director of Public Communications for Trinity United Church in Chicago she served as a public theologian for racial and social justice. In addition, her interfaith and ecumenical ministry assignment locations included, Johannesburg and Pretoria South Africa, Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia, Washington, DC, and Montgomery and Auburn, Alabama.
The Rev. Dr. Joan R. Harrell is also the founder of the Auburn University Becoming the Beloved Community Humanities Conference and Digital Project. Becoming the Beloved Community offers a brave and space for each person from all walks of life to make individual and communal commitments to share their lived experiences, engage in dialogue and intentionally, proactively, and nonviolently work to Become the Beloved Community everyday of their lives no matter where they live, learn, work, or worship.
