​Rev. Dr. Tyshawn Gardner
​Fellow

I currently serve as the Senior Pastor of the Plum Grove Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa and as the Vice-President for Student Affairs at the illustrious Stillman College.  I am the founder and CEO of the Citizen Impacting Community Association, a non-profit dedicated to serving and empowering the intergenerational communities of West Tuscaloosa.  From 2016-2019, I served as the president of the Tuscaloosa Chapter of the SCLC.  I received the Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Stillman College in Tuscaloosa and the Master of Divinity degree (MDiv) from Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, in Birmingham, where the Dean and faculty awarded me the Most Distinguished Student in 2014.  I earned the PhD in Christian Preaching at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, where my research interest is: Social Crisis Preaching and Rhetoric in the African American Preaching Tradition, African American Preaching, Black Church Leadership, and the African American Church. I am a veteran of the U.S. Navy and served in both Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm.