Reverend Dr. Jason R. Curry

The Reverend Dr. Jason R. Curry currently serves as the Dean of the Chapel Fisk University. He has served as Dean of the Chapel from 2003-2008, and from 2009 to the present day. A native of Buffalo, New York, Dean Curry became extremely active in Agape African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) at a young age. Dean Curry is currently a licensed and ordained Itinerant Elder in the AMEC. He served as the Senior Pastor for three and one-half years at the Historic St. Peter African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) in Harrodsburg, Kentucky and for one year as the Senior Pastor of St. Matthews AMEC in Midway, Kentucky. While in Kentucky, Dean Curry proudly served as a leader in the area of Christian Education in the Lexington District of the Kentucky Conference in the Thirteenth Episcopal District for three years. Dean Curry remains active in the AMEC and has effectively addressed various assignments in the denomination under the leadership of Bishop Hartford H. Brookins, Bishop Frederick Talbot and Bishop Vashti McKenzie, the first African-American female bishop of the AMEC. 

Dean Curry graduated from Morehouse College cum laude in 1992, receiving the Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy and Religion. He also holds the Master of Divinity Degree from Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2005, Dean Curry received the Doctor of Philosophy Degree from the Graduate School at Vanderbilt University. In his dissertation, Dean Curry argued that the effectiveness of pastoral counseling as it currently exists among African-American parishioners could be greatly enhanced though insights and techniques currently used in the social sciences. Dean Curry’s research interests at Vanderbilt University were a continuation of his research interests at Harvard University in which he argued that spirituality was a resource for the recovery of African Americans who were addicted to alcohol and other drugs. Dean Curry’s research interests in the area of pastoral counseling are necessarily informed by his theoretical or and practical experience in the area of counseling. As a doctoral student, Dean Curry was a participant in Vanderbilt University’s Clinical Seminars at the Vine Street Pastoral Counseling Center and he was also an Intern for Center for Substance Abuse Prevention Project, sponsored by the Kelly Miller Smith Institute for Black Church Studies a Vanderbilt University. While completing his Masters’ Degree, Dean Curry also served the African-American community of Roxbury, MA as a Counselor and Case Manager at Dimock Community Health Center.

Dean Curry is currently completing the Star Book on Pastoral Counseling which will be published by Judson Press. At Fisk University, Dean Curry has taught courses titled the Sociology of Religion, the Psychology of Religion, the Philosophy of Religion and African-American Leadership. He has published the Forward in Now They Call Me Reverend by Sidney F. Bryant (2006), “The Essence of Holy Communion” in the Journal of Christian Education, (African Methodist Episcopal Church Sunday School Union, 2006) and “An Inquiry Concerning the Validity of the Religious Association Scale and the Validity of Self-Reports Among Substance Abusers” in The A.M.E. Church Review (September 2003). Dean  Curry presented a paper titled “Institutional Research and the Wider Community: The Importance of Collaborative Efforts” at the Conference on Institutional Research in Historically Black Colleges and Universities hosted by Spelman College (2003). Dean Curry also worked as a Consultant for the Reverend Dr. Daryl B. Ingram, General Officer and Director of the Department of Christian Education from the AMEC. His research interests in the area of higher education began as a Summer Research Fellow in Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University in New York City (1989) and as an intern in the Alexander Crummell Humanities Seminars at Boston University (1991). Dean Curry has received several academic honors and awards including being recognized by the Fund for Theological Education as a Benjamin E. Mays Scholar (1994-1996) and a Dissertation Fellow (2003), Vanderbilt University as a Graduate Fellow (1997-1999) and Outstanding Young Americans (1998).

As the Dean of the Chapel, Dean Curry founded the Fisk Memorial Chapel Assistants in 2003 and the Leaders of the Interfaith Fellowship Team (L.I.F.T.). Under Dean Curry’s leadership, nationally renowned speakers visit the Chapel several times a year.Dean Curry is a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Incorporated as well as a Connecting Link. Dean  Curry is married to Mrs. Angela Curry, Esq. and they are the proud parents of three children, John, Nia and Samuel Curry.