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Yolanda Y. Smith

Assistant Professor of Christian Education

yolanda.smith@yale.edu
(203) 436-4818

B.A.E., Arizona State University
M.Ed., Arizona State University
M.Div., The School of Theology at Virginia Union University
M.A., Claremont School of Theology
Ph.D., Claremont School of Theology

Professor Smith’s teaching interests include the practice of Christian education with particular attention to the role of the arts, womanist theology, Christian education in the African American experience, and multicultural approaches to Christian education. She is the author of the book Reclaiming the Spirituals: New Possibilities for African American Christian Education, which examines the role of the spirituals in teaching the triple heritage (African, African American, and Christian) of African Americans. She has also published a wide range of articles and book chapters, including “I Want to Be Ready! Teaching Christian Education in the African American Experience”; “Olivia Pearl Stokes,” online entry for the Web-based database Christian Educators of the 20th Century; “Not Just Sunday School! Religious Education in the New Millennium: New Visions for Partnership in Ministry and Theological Education”; “Forming Wisdom through Cultural Rootedness”; “He Still Wid Us–Jesus: The Musical Theology of the Spirituals”; “Olivia Pearl Stokes: A Living Testimony of Faith,” coauthored with Mary Elizabeth Moore. Her forthcoming publications include “Womanist Hermeneutics: Implications for African American Christian Education” and “Womanist Theology: Insights for Women in Leadership in Theological Education.” Currently she is engaged in a research and writing project, in collaboration with Moses N. Moore, Jr., titled “‘Been in the Storm So Long’: Yale Divinity School and the Black Ministry—One Hundred and Fifty Years of Black Theological Education.” She is a member of the Yale Divinity School Women’s Initiative on Gender, Faith, and Responses to HIV/AIDS in Africa and a board member of the AIDS Interfaith Network and the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. An ordained Baptist minister, she has served as an associate minister and minister of evangelism and discipleship in the local church.

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)