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It’s hard to keep up with the highly accomplished, internationally active Rev. Dr. R. Drew Smith, Pittsburgh Seminary’s professor of urban ministry and director of the Metro-Urban Institute. His ongoing appointments also include as research fellow in the Department of Philosophy and Systematic Theology at the University of South Africa in Pretoria, and as scholar-in-residence at the Leadership Center at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

With multiple graduate degrees from Yale (including a doctorate in political science), Drew has received many honors and awards for his academic leadership, including selection in 2002 as an Emerging Leaders Fellow by a Duke University/University of Cape Town program on Leadership and Public Values, and selection in 2008 for an Indiana Governor’s Black Expo Leadership award. A diverse array of leadership activities has earned him such distinctions.

Both a social scientist and clergyman, Drew has initiated and directed multiple projects related to religion and public life, including the Public Influences of African-American Churches Project and the Faith Communities and Urban Families Project. In addition to gathering research data, the Projects have convened seminars, conferences, and roundtables—such as the Transatlantic Roundtable on Race and Religion—that have brought clergy, policy makers, and community leaders together to discuss matters pertaining to the Church’s public mission and ministry. As a Baptist clergyman, he has ministered in a number of parish, prison, and campus ministry contexts.

Drew has also been actively involved in international community development and youth leadership development, initially as an executive staff person at Operation Crossroads Africa during the 1980s. He served in 2005 as a Fulbright Professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and in 2009 as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Cameroon. 

He has also lectured in many international venues, including in Israel as part of the U.S. State Department’s Speakers Bureau. Just during the past year, internationally he has co-convened conferences and presented papers with titles such as “Expanded Poverty, Church Ministry Distance, and Public Policy Evasions in the U.S.” (for The Church’s Community Role in Times of Austerity, University of London), and “Contemporary Responsiveness to Black Enslavement Past and Present: 150 Years After the Emancipation Proclamation” (for Black Churches and 21st Century Captivities, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Accra). His latest book is titled Urban Ministry Reconsidered: Contexts and Approaches (co-editor; Westminster John Knox Press, 2018).

It’s hard to keep up with the highly accomplished, internationally active Rev. Dr. R. Drew Smith, Pittsburgh Seminary’s professor of urban ministry and director of the Metro-Urban Institute. His ongoing appointments also include as research fellow in the Department of Philosophy and Systematic Theology at the University of South Africa in Pretoria, and as scholar-in-residence at the Leadership Center at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

With multiple graduate degrees from Yale (including a doctorate in political science), Drew has received many honors and awards for his academic leadership, including selection in 2002 as an Emerging Leaders Fellow by a Duke University/University of Cape Town program on Leadership and Public Values, and selection in 2008 for an Indiana Governor’s Black Expo Leadership award. A diverse array of leadership activities has earned him such distinctions.

Both a social scientist and clergyman, Drew has initiated and directed multiple projects related to religion and public life, including the Public Influences of African-American Churches Project and the Faith Communities and Urban Families Project. In addition to gathering research data, the Projects have convened seminars, conferences, and roundtables—such as the Transatlantic Roundtable on Race and Religion—that have brought clergy, policy makers, and community leaders together to discuss matters pertaining to the Church’s public mission and ministry. As a Baptist clergyman, he has ministered in a number of parish, prison, and campus ministry contexts.

Drew has also been actively involved in international community development and youth leadership development, initially as an executive staff person at Operation Crossroads Africa during the 1980s. He served in 2005 as a Fulbright Professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and in 2009 as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Cameroon. 

He has also lectured in many international venues, including in Israel as part of the U.S. State Department’s Speakers Bureau. Just during the past year, internationally he has co-convened conferences and presented papers with titles such as “Expanded Poverty, Church Ministry Distance, and Public Policy Evasions in the U.S.” (for The Church’s Community Role in Times of Austerity, University of London), and “Contemporary Responsiveness to Black Enslavement Past and Present: 150 Years After the Emancipation Proclamation” (for Black Churches and 21st Century Captivities, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Accra). His latest book is titled Urban Ministry Reconsidered: Contexts and Approaches (co-editor; Westminster John Knox Press, 2018).