University of Orange

What's the story? A memoir writing class
2021-11-12 11:00 - 12:00, 2021-11-19 11:00 - 12:00, 2021-11-26 11:00 - 12:00, 2021-12-03 11:00 - 12:00, 2021-12-10 11:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York) | NJ
10-week virtual memoir class offered by UofO, taught by developmental editor Susan Hasho

What’s the Story? A Memoir writing class
Do you have some stories you’d like to tell? There may be stories about your life that you want to tell your children or grandchildren, perhaps about another country or culture you came from or your parents came from. Was there an experience that changed your life or your neighborhood? How about if you were in the military and you want to share something about that? If you have a desire to share or describe anything that you are fascinated by, care about or even want to change, this class is a place to do that.
What’s the Story is a 10-week writing class that intends to provoke, free and guide anyone to write a memoir that reflects their own unique voice and life experience. There will be interaction with everyone in the class, homework, time for each person to talk about their writing or their questions about what they would like to write as well as feedback from the teacher. Anyone who chooses may read their writing at a designated time period during the class.
Susan Hasho is a developmental editor which is an editor involved in the mysterious process of enabling writers and anyone interested in writing to find their way through the maze of expectations, judgement and even fear to find the true heart of what they want to write. She has trained and worked as an actor and writer, and moved into the advertising field to work as a copy editor for advertising agencies and Fortune 500 companies. She began working with writers several years ago as an editor and it became her goal to teach a writing class that would enable people to be as free of self-criticism and inhibiting expectations as possible in order to write clearly and openly with joy.

Rebuilding just communities = healing ourselves
2021-11-15 12:30 - 13:30, 2021-11-22 12:30 - 13:30, 2021-11-29 12:30 - 13:30, 2021-12-06 12:30 - 13:30, 2021-12-13 12:30 - 13:30 | NJ
Join UofO’s Collective Recovery Fellow, Dr. Marisela Gomez, for a free 12-week course: “Rebuilding Just Communities = Healing Ourselves”

Title: Rebuilding just communities = healing ourselves
Description: This course will instruct participants on mindfulness practices and their effect on ourselves and our work in organizing and working for racial and social justice. Participants will be able to see the direct effect of these practices on themselves. They will understand how showing up for the challenging work of rebuilding just communities requires that we ourselves are engaged in our own transformative work of healing ourselves, less we duplicate the oppressive structures we seek to change.
Attendance: The invitation is that all participants will commit to make every effort to attend all classes.
12 week course meeting for 60 mins each week*
Weeks of Oct 4 – Dec 13 2021
Mondays 1230 pm EST
*Last week will include a half day retreat/presentations 1230 – 430p, date to be decided.
Marisela Gomez is a mindfulness and health practitioner and social justice activist. Her activism focuses on community healing and economic empowerment in historically abandoned low-income Black communities.

Remembering Rosa: A Concert for Peace
2021-12-10 16:30 - 18:00 | 35 Cleveland St, 35 Cleveland Street, City of Orange, NJ, 07050, United States
Join University of Orange, Ebenezer Baptist Church and Orange Public Schools at the HUUB on Friday December 10th for University of Orange’s 6th annual Remembering Rosa: A Concert for Peace. In 2020 Remembering Rosa was all virtual due to Covid-19. This year all of the performances have been pre-recorded, but we will be streaming the videos live with outdoor heaters and hot soup to keep you warm.
Featuring performances from Concepts Dance Academy , George Johnson III, and OHS drama department in addition to Remembering Rosa stalwarts: the Orange All-City Chorus and EBC Worship choir. This event is outdoors, doors open 4:30 amd screening and performances from 5-6, and includes soup from Lando’s Jamaican Bakery and vaccinations (including boosters) from La Casa Del Don Pedro
Remembering Rosa is organized by UofO Music City Remembering Rosa team: Dr. Margaux Simmons, Douglas Farrand, Winston Nelson Sr, Mariel Johnson, and Tisa Singleton.
Graphic design by Jacqueline Castañeda

CDC's COVID Collapse: Organizing for a People's Response (part 2)
2022-01-20 17:00 - 18:30 | NJ
Join us for part 2 of “CDC’s Covid Collapse”. We will split into three working groups. See below for more information and sign up here.
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Candidate Joe Biden denounced the Trump administration’s handling of the COVID pandemic. And with good reason. In less than a year, half-a-million Americans were killed by both the virus and the negligent response. Despite running on a platform to get the outbreak under control, and even now with a vaccine in hand, by next spring the new administration will bear responsibility for another half-a-million passing.
Like its predecessor, the Biden administration has repeatedly tried to turn the page on COVID, largely in the service of reopening the economy first, rather than intervening into this major public health emergency at the scale it requires. Under both administrations, the CDC has repeatedly bent the science of COVID against a full-spectrum response and increasingly with the aim of sending millions back to work and school under what have proven to remain dangerous conditions. That kind of anti-public health approach is unacceptable.
What does a people’s response to such a dereliction of public health duty look like? Join our panel of epidemiologists and community leaders for a discussion of what an exit out of the COVID trap requires. Help set up working groups to push for specific interventions that are proven to help both control the COVID outbreak and mitigate the burdens that arise from these intercessions. Despair alone is not an option. We need to act!

(POSTPONED) UofOrange Jan Term Stroll 'n Scroll
2022-01-22 11:00 - 13:00 | 35 Cleveland St, 35 Cleveland Street, City of Orange, NJ, 07050, United States
DUE TO COVID19 OMICRON VARIANT SPREAD IN OUR COMMUNITY WE ARE POSTPONING THIS EVENT UNTIL IT IS SAFE TO GATHER AGAIN.

Join UofOrange for a walking tour around Orange, NJ using the Stroll ‘n Scroll method for learning about our city!

At UofOrange we learn about our city by spending time in our city! Join us for a walking tour of Orange NJ. Mindy’s Fullilove’s book Main Street introduced to us a way of exploring our own neighborhoods. Together we will stroll the streets of Orange, share what we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. Afterwards we will create a ‘scroll’, documenting our walk and everything we experienced.
We will meet at the HUUB (35 Cleveland Street, Orange, NJ) on January 22nd at 11am. If the weather is bad, the rain date is January 29th at the same time and place. We will walk for about an hour and then convene to make our scroll for about an hour. Warm beverages and tasty snacks from local cafes, bakeries and restaurats will be provided.
Depending on the state of Covid-19 spread in Essex County, we may well do the ‘scroll’ part of our walk outside, in which case we encourage warm dressing but will also provide an outdoor heater so that we can stay warm.

Homeboy Came to Orange Reading Group
2022-01-24 18:00 - 19:00 | NJ
Four week virtual reading group of “Homeboy Came to Orange” by Ernest Thompson and Mindy Thompson Fullilove. Register online at this link.

Join UofOrange for a four week, free, virtual reading group, Monday’s, 6-7PM, from January 24th until February 14th. We will read “Homeboy Came to Orange”, the memoirs of Ernest Thompson, co-written by his daughter and UofOrange co-founder Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove.
Homeboy Came to Orange is the story of a union organizer who found a second career in community organizing and helped a Jim Crow city become a better place.
Ernest Thompson dedicated his life to organizing the powerless. This lively, illustrated personal narrative of his work shows the great contribution that people’s coalitions can make to the struggle for equality and freedom. Thompson cut his teeth organizing one of the great industrial unions, the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, and brought his organizing skills and commitment to coalition building to Orange, New Jersey. He built a strong organization and skillfully led fights for school desegregation, black political representation, and strong government in a city he initially thought of as a “dirty Jim Crow town going nowhere.” Thompson came to love the City of Orange and its caring citizens, seeing in its struggles a microcosm of America. This story of people’s power is meant for all who struggle for human rights, economic opportunity, decent housing, effective education, and a chance for children to have a better life.
Ernest Thompson (1906-1971) grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, on a farm that had been given to his family at the end of the Civil War. The family was very poor and oppressed by racist practices. Thompson was determined to get away and to obtain power. He migrated to Jersey City, where he became part of the union organizing movement that built the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO). He became the first African American to hold a fulltime organizing position with his union, the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). He eventually headed UE’s innovative Fair Employment Practices program and fought for equal rights and pay for women and minority workers. Thompson also helped build the National Negro Labor Council, 1951-1956, and served as its director of organizing. In 1956, under the onslaught of the McCarthy era, UE was split in two, and Thompson lost his job. His wife, Margaret Thompson, brought the local school segregation to his attention. Ernie “Home” Thompson organized to desegregate the regional schools, building strong coalitions and political power for the black community that ultimately served all the people of Orange.
You can purchase a copy of the book online here. If you are local to Orange NJ and would like a free copy, please contact info@universityoforange.org (free copies available while supplies last).

UofO Jan Term: Tiny Town
2022-01-26 12:00 - 13:00 | NJ
Join UofO’s urbanists in residence, Kay Liang and Maria Gerdyman, for a free 10-week course: “Tiny Town”. Register at this link.

Wednesdays, January 26th – April 6th, 2022 (except March 9th)
12PM-1PM EST on Zoom
Open to all ages.
Join UofO’s urbanists in residence, Kay Liang and Maria Gerdyman, for a free 10-week course: “Tiny Town”
Tiny Town is an interactive storytelling universe for adventurers of all ages. Participants interact with and contribute to a digital world by embodying their own avatars and submitting drawings, sounds, and found objects.
This course will take place in the malleable world of Tiny Town, where participants can playtest their wildest dreams for the city of Orange. Participants will be invited to heal their inner child and creative anxiety through playful drawing, storytelling and role-playing prompts. By illustrating our difficult experiences as characters and immersive neighborhoods, we can collectively build a city that is centered around love.
Grace Lee Boggs said, “It’s up to us to reimagine the alternatives and not just protest against them and expect them to do better.” What will emerge from a digital fantasyland where not even material reality, let alone slow-moving bureaucracy holds us back?
The invitation is that all participants will commit to make every effort to attend all classes. An additional smaller group co-creation session will be scheduled during the course. The last week will include a finale celebration, date to be decided.
Kay Liang is a ladybug lover and aspiring storyteller who is passionate about building worlds that can honor our full selves and collective imaginations.
Maria Gerdyman is a garbage enthusiast and amateur masseuse who cares about making everybody feel heard, non-humans included.

Homeboy Came to Orange Reading Group
2022-01-31 18:00 - 19:00, 2022-02-07 18:00 - 19:00, 2022-02-14 18:00 - 19:00 | NJ
Four week virtual reading group of “Homeboy Came to Orange” by Ernest Thompson and Mindy Thompson Fullilove

Join UofOrange for a four week, free, virtual reading group, Monday’s, 6-7PM, from January 24th until February 14th. We will read “Homeboy Came to Orange”, the memoirs of Ernest Thompson, co-written by his daughter and UofOrange co-founder Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove.
Homeboy Came to Orange is the story of a union organizer who found a second career in community organizing and helped a Jim Crow city become a better place.
Ernest Thompson dedicated his life to organizing the powerless. This lively, illustrated personal narrative of his work shows the great contribution that people’s coalitions can make to the struggle for equality and freedom. Thompson cut his teeth organizing one of the great industrial unions, the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, and brought his organizing skills and commitment to coalition building to Orange, New Jersey. He built a strong organization and skillfully led fights for school desegregation, black political representation, and strong government in a city he initially thought of as a “dirty Jim Crow town going nowhere.” Thompson came to love the City of Orange and its caring citizens, seeing in its struggles a microcosm of America. This story of people’s power is meant for all who struggle for human rights, economic opportunity, decent housing, effective education, and a chance for children to have a better life.
Ernest Thompson (1906-1971) grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, on a farm that had been given to his family at the end of the Civil War. The family was very poor and oppressed by racist practices. Thompson was determined to get away and to obtain power. He migrated to Jersey City, where he became part of the union organizing movement that built the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO). He became the first African American to hold a fulltime organizing position with his union, the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). He eventually headed UE’s innovative Fair Employment Practices program and fought for equal rights and pay for women and minority workers. Thompson also helped build the National Negro Labor Council, 1951-1956, and served as its director of organizing. In 1956, under the onslaught of the McCarthy era, UE was split in two, and Thompson lost his job. His wife, Margaret Thompson, brought the local school segregation to his attention. Ernie “Home” Thompson organized to desegregate the regional schools, building strong coalitions and political power for the black community that ultimately served all the people of Orange.
You can purchase a copy of the book online here. If you are local to Orange NJ and would like a free copy, please contact info@universityoforange.org (free copies available while supplies last).

UofO Jan Term: Tiny Town
2022-02-02 12:00 - 13:00, 2022-02-09 12:00 - 13:00, 2022-02-16 12:00 - 13:00, 2022-02-23 12:00 - 13:00, 2022-03-02 12:00 - 13:00, 2022-03-16 12:00 - 13:00, 2022-03-23 12:00 - 13:00 | NJ
Join UofO’s urbanists in residence, Kay Liang and Maria Gerdyman, for a free 10-week course: “Tiny Town”

Wednesdays, January 26th – April 6th, 2022 (except March 9th)
12PM-1PM EST on Zoom
Open to all ages.
Join UofO’s urbanists in residence, Kay Liang and Maria Gerdyman, for a free 10-week course: “Tiny Town”
Tiny Town is an interactive storytelling universe for adventurers of all ages. Participants interact with and contribute to a digital world by embodying their own avatars and submitting drawings, sounds, and found objects.
This course will take place in the malleable world of Tiny Town, where participants can playtest their wildest dreams for the city of Orange. Participants will be invited to heal their inner child and creative anxiety through playful drawing, storytelling and role-playing prompts. By illustrating our difficult experiences as characters and immersive neighborhoods, we can collectively build a city that is centered around love.
Grace Lee Boggs said, “It’s up to us to reimagine the alternatives and not just protest against them and expect them to do better.” What will emerge from a digital fantasyland where not even material reality, let alone slow-moving bureaucracy holds us back?
The invitation is that all participants will commit to make every effort to attend all classes. An additional smaller group co-creation session will be scheduled during the course. The last week will include a finale celebration, date to be decided.
Kay Liang is a ladybug lover and aspiring storyteller who is passionate about building worlds that can honor our full selves and collective imaginations.
Maria Gerdyman is a garbage enthusiast and amateur masseuse who cares about making everybody feel heard, non-humans included.

What's the Story? Memoir Class Reading
2022-02-11 18:00 - 19:30 | NJ
Join UofO’s inaugural “What’s the Story” Memoir Writing Class to hear readings of memoir’s written last Fall.

Join UofO’s inaugural “What’s the Story” Memoir Writing Class to hear readings of memoir’s written last Fall. Taught by conceptual editor, Susan Hasho, we will hear readings from t. jahan, Margaux Simmons, Nazeefa Hossain, Nitika, Dominic Moulden, and Nupur Chaudhury.

What's the story? A memoir writing class
2022-03-18 11:00 - 12:00, 2022-03-25 11:00 - 12:00 | NJ
10-week virtual memoir class offered by UofO, taught by developmental editor Susan Hasho
