By Levi McGarry, College of Arts and Sciences
As a 2025 Publicly Engaged Fellow, Ashley Wells, an American studies and culture PhD candidate in the School of Languages, Cultures, and Race, has piloted “Grace and Grounding: A Dialogue Series on Black Women, Mental Health, and the Church.” With the partnership of Central Baptist Church in midtown Manhattan, New York, Wells has been designing a dialogue series that allows open and honest reflections among the female congregation members.
“It’s a community-based summer project that is looking to bridge the gap between faith and mental health within Black women’s lives,” said Wells. “This initiative is focused on centering Black women across generations in intimate, church-based dialogue circles in New York City.”
According to Wells’ dissertation research, the role of the church within the Black American community can have both positive and negative effects on parishioners dealing with mental health issues. While the church community can be a safe space to gather individuals and discuss issues, it can also foster stigma around mental health challenges. This sense of quietism is at the heart of Wells’ project.
“I’m looking at both parts and asking, how can we take the ability for the Black church to be this safe space and broaden it out to talk about mental health as well?” said Wells.
The “Grace and Grounding” project addresses these issues by inviting a mental health professional into the church space for a roundtable discussion among the female congregants. The dialogue is founded on Christian principles and was conceptualized in order to allow Black women to converse about mental health in a non-judgmental yet familiar atmosphere.
“I think some of the most important and integral work we can do as scholars and researchers is to put our scholarship into practice and to actually help people,” said Wells. “I’m hoping that by creating this safe space with this church, women who once felt hesitant about mental health care will start to engage more openly.”
Each year, the Pollart Center for Arts and Humanities partners with the Washington State University Graduate School to host the Publicly Engaged Fellows program for graduate students. Created with funding from a National Endowment for the Humanities NextGen grant, the Publicly Engaged Fellows program supports students by providing the training necessary to work equitably with community partners and develop an independent summer project of engaged scholarship.