Helen and Robert E. Fullilove Chair of Community Health Inauguration

The University of Orange is honored to welcome Dr. Mindy Fullilove in her new role as the Helen and Robert Fullilove Professor of Community Health, named in honor of two exemplary Essex County leaders whose lives demonstrated a commitment to education, health and society. We will be celebrating the inauguration on Saturday, March 29th from 2-4pm at the HUUB. The event will feature live music, speakers, including NJ Senator Britnee Timberlake, and a reception to follow.

This is our first named chair at the University of Orange, a people’s free university in Orange, NJ, Mindy’s hometown. UofO is grounded in Dr. Fullilove’s four decades of work identifying the root causes of our social disconnection and creating the tools we need to reweave our fractured country. For sixteen years, UofOrange has been developing and practicing the skills essential for civic connection and collaboration to address the challenges we face together. We believe these are the skills and practices we need in this moment of American metacrisis.

To sustain and grow this work, we are launching a campaign to support The Helen and Robert Fullilove Chair in Community Public Health at the University of Orange. We invite anyone who has been influenced and shaped by Mindy’s research and teaching to consider making a donation in support of this milestone. Your investment will support both the Chair and the University of Orange, ensuring that Dr. Mindy Fullilove’s decades of research and practice continue to shape the future. It will fund:

• A permanent home at the people’s free school for Dr. Fullilove’s research, writings and teachings.
• Facts people need and media they can use: free public workshops, reading groups toolkits and other resources to support communities with tools for healing.
• The longevity and health of our community campus at the HUUB, a space for collective learning, organizing, and civic engagement.
• UofO’s ability to convene partners across the country, sharing knowledge and strategies for rebuilding communities.

If you have any questions you can get in touch by emailing mollyrose@universityoforange.org to discuss how to mobilize your network or institutional affiliation.

About Helen and Robert E. Fullilove:

Dr. Robert Fullilove was among the first African American physicians to become a Diplomate of the American Board of Urology in 1948 and at the time of his death, was the first African American President of the Essex County Medical Society. Helen Fullilove was the first African American woman to serve as the president of the Newark, NJ Board of Education and served as a member of the New Jersey School Boards Association. The Helen and Robert Fullilove Chair in Community Health will serve as an ongoing commitment to that work and will serve as UofO’s enduring promise to achieve the goals and objectives in health and education that the lives of the Fulliloves so powerfully inspired.