About Us

Who We Are

A Bit About Presiding Elder Cooper...

The Reverend Karla J. Cooper, EdD, the seventh child of eight children of Joel and Kay Cooper, ordained an Itinerant Elder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, has been active in pastoral ministry for more than 20 years. Most recently she was the pastor at Allen Chapel-St. John AME Church in Kansas City, Missouri.

She is currently associate professor of practice in the College of Education at Doane University. She is also adjunct faculty with Nebraska Wesleyan University in the Department of Sociology.

She is a graduate of Eden Theological Seminary where she received a Master’s of Divinity. She is a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University where she received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mass Communication. She holds a Doctorate in Education (EdD) from Doane University. Dr. Cooper’s research is on the intersectionality of race, gender, class, religion, sexual orientation with a particular focus on the transgender community.

Reverend Cooper is a former Connectional Officer with Women In Ministry of the African Methodist Episcopal Church serving as its Financial Secretary for 2008-2009 and Dean of the Board of Examiners Midwest Annual Conference.

Dr. Cooper is the author of “When Blacks Were Green” and is the co-author of a chapter entitled “Where Race, Gender and Orientation Meet” with Dr. Joretta Marshall in the pastoral care manual entitled: “Volume IV: Women out of Order: Risking Change and Creating Care in a Multicultural World."