Rev. Dr. Shonda Nicole Gladden, PhD
Director of the Center for Religion, Arts, & Culture
The Rev. Dr. Shonda Nicole Gladden is the Director of the Center for Religion, Arts, and Culture at Broadway. The Center for Religion, Arts, and Culture exists to cultivate creative self-actualization and freedom, while holding space for critical exploration of the ways religion, art, and culture shape our civic and communal pursuits. In this role she stewards the work of the Center, including the Civic Action, Learning, & Leadership (C.A.L.L.) Fellowship Program which was established in 2023 through the generous support of the Indianapolis African American Quality of Life Initiative (IAAQLI). This program will soon be expanded to serve college students in 5 cities throughout the U.S..
Rev. Dr. Gladden also served as the Sr. Associate Pastor at Broadway UMC in Indianapolis from March, 2022 - May, 2026.
She currently serves as the Senior Pastor of LaPlata AME Church in Maryland.
MORE ABOUT DR. GLADDEN
Dr. Gladden is also a scholar at Indiana University - Indianapolis, where her research emerges at the intersections of philosophy, art, gender and cultural studies and aims to explore an anti-colonial enterprise of deconstructing Black gendered identities and cultural productions. Utilizing critical visual culture methodologies, her work explores representations of identity and the framing of movements- social, spatial, and spiritual- as cultural productions that inform ANTI-Blackness, and Black aesthetics, within the colonial project of the Americas. during her matriculation through the Ph.D. program, she was a graduate research assistant to the IU Arts and Humanities Institute (IAHI) for the religion, spirituality, and the arts seminar. She is currently a higher education professional at IU-Indianapolis, Associate faculty in the School of Liberal Arts, and an occasional lecturer for various university departments.
She is the the founder of Good to the SOUL, a social enterprise that energizes individuals and institutions to flourish and do good, especially good that promotes the “spirit of universal liberation" (SOUL). She has served the African Methodist Episcopal Church in various leadership and support roles, including serving as lead pastor of four congregations and in clergy support roles for six congregations in the span of a thirty-two year career.
As the mother of a post-millennial child, a philosophical theologian, and local pastor, she passionately embodies a pragmatic approach to analyzing and addressing impediments to individual and institutional flourishing. Through the primary work of cultivating spaces where human flourishing is central and individuals are invited to attend to the healing and well-being of their souls, she coaches and consults with various think tanks and organizations to produce theologically informed and creative resources, influencing organizational, individual, and cultural change.
Her life work is committed to studying, singing, speaking, and showing up consistently full of everything that reflects being and doing good to the SOUL.
Rev. Dr. Gladden also served as the Sr. Associate Pastor at Broadway UMC in Indianapolis from March, 2022 - May, 2026.
She currently serves as the Senior Pastor of LaPlata AME Church in Maryland.
MORE ABOUT DR. GLADDEN
Dr. Gladden is also a scholar at Indiana University - Indianapolis, where her research emerges at the intersections of philosophy, art, gender and cultural studies and aims to explore an anti-colonial enterprise of deconstructing Black gendered identities and cultural productions. Utilizing critical visual culture methodologies, her work explores representations of identity and the framing of movements- social, spatial, and spiritual- as cultural productions that inform ANTI-Blackness, and Black aesthetics, within the colonial project of the Americas. during her matriculation through the Ph.D. program, she was a graduate research assistant to the IU Arts and Humanities Institute (IAHI) for the religion, spirituality, and the arts seminar. She is currently a higher education professional at IU-Indianapolis, Associate faculty in the School of Liberal Arts, and an occasional lecturer for various university departments.
She is the the founder of Good to the SOUL, a social enterprise that energizes individuals and institutions to flourish and do good, especially good that promotes the “spirit of universal liberation" (SOUL). She has served the African Methodist Episcopal Church in various leadership and support roles, including serving as lead pastor of four congregations and in clergy support roles for six congregations in the span of a thirty-two year career.
As the mother of a post-millennial child, a philosophical theologian, and local pastor, she passionately embodies a pragmatic approach to analyzing and addressing impediments to individual and institutional flourishing. Through the primary work of cultivating spaces where human flourishing is central and individuals are invited to attend to the healing and well-being of their souls, she coaches and consults with various think tanks and organizations to produce theologically informed and creative resources, influencing organizational, individual, and cultural change.
Her life work is committed to studying, singing, speaking, and showing up consistently full of everything that reflects being and doing good to the SOUL.