Joan R. Harrell
Lecturer
Director of Inclusive Excellence, College of Liberal Arts
Communication & Journalism
Office Hours
By Appointment
Education
DMIN, Chicago Theological Seminary
MDiv, Interdenominational Theological Center
MS, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
BS, Stephens College
About Me
Joan R. Harrell is the Director of Inclusive Excellence in the office of the Dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Journalism Lecturer in the School of Communication and Journalism. She has a Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion Leadership from Cornell University. As a journalism educator, Joan intersects her local and international news experience with examining how marginalized people and communities, stereotypes, social and geographical locations, cultures, coded language, climate change, health disparities, and unconscious bias, factor into the truth finding process, journalists and media practitioners use to research, investigate, conduct interviews, and verify facts.
Harrell teaches journalism courses that engage emerging journalists and media practitioners how to become intentional learners and practitioners of news writing and reporting, magazine feature writing, sports and politics, history of journalism, cultural identity, racial inequalities, social justice, social change, environmental justice, climate change, diversity and democracy, literary journalism, reporting on faith communities, and the intersectionality of media ethics and vulnerable populations.
Before entering academia, she worked in local television markets as an award-winning journalist including news anchor at ABC, NBC and CBS television affiliates in GA, SC, and MO; researcher and field producer at the ABC News Bureau in London, England; assignment editor at the CBS News Bureau and CSPAN in Washington, DC; associate producer for Alvin Perlmutter; and correspondent and associate producer for Bill Moyers in New York City.
Her writing and public relations skills and expertise also afforded her opportunities to work as the Senior Vice of Programming in the Women’s Division of World Space Corporation, Vice President Walls Communications and Vice President of Media Relations for Hill and Knowlton Public Affairs Worldwide in Washington, DC. She is the former associate senior editor of the Journal of Healthcare Science and the Humanities and freelance writer for Essence Magazine, Christian Century, The Huffington Post, We Talk, We Listen, and Sojourner’s Blog.
The Rev. Dr. Harrell is also an ordained minister in the American Baptist Church, founder and moderator of the digital humanities project Becoming the Beloved Community and member of the inaugural cohort in the Henry Luce Foundation Public Theology and Racial Justice Institute at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. She was honored as the 2020 guest lecturer for the "Theological Bioethics Within Marginalized Communities Series" at Harvard University Divinity School Center for the Study of World Religions.
Her scholarship explores the intersectionality of narrative ethics, racism, media stereotypes, religion, social change, vulnerable populations, xenophobia, theology, religion, alterity, and public health injustices.
Research Interests
intersecting of race, alterity, communication media, media ethics, vulnerable populations, religion and bioethics