May 7, 2003, Bloomfield, NJ -- Newark’s first African American Councilwoman, Mildred C. Crump, will serve as keynote speaker for the closing ceremony of the Bloomfield College Kellman Course in the Humanities. The ceremony will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, May 16 in the College’s Robert V. Van Fossan Theatre.

A long time community activist, Mildred Crump is Vice President of the Board of Trustees for Integrity House, Inc.; a member of the Board of Trustees of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Newark; and Vice Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Bridge to Recovery, an organization that addresses substance abuse from a spiritual perspective. She is also the founder of Newark Women’s Conference, Inc., an annual two-day event which is dedicated to empowering women in the Newark area.

Mildred Crump has presented workshops on the “empowerment of women” in Beijing, China; Ghana, West Africa; and throughout the United States. She is a founding member of the New Jersey Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc., The National Political Congress for Black Women, and the Global Women’s Leadership Collaborative of New Jersey, to name a few.

She is the recipient of more than 200 awards for her advocacy work on behalf of women, children, senior citizens, the disabled, working families, and those in need. She was selected Essex County Woman of the Year in 1995 and was named one of the 100 Most Influential Citizens in New Jersey in 1996.

The Bloomfield College Kellman Course in the Humanities brings free college-level classes to a dedicated group of adult students twice a week. The classes are held at Bethany Baptist Church in Newark.

Many of the students are between 40 and 60 years old; they have raised families, worked various jobs, and abandoned their dreams of college along the way. For them, the Kellman Course is more than an overview of the liberal arts; it is a life-transforming experience.

Bloomfield College was selected as one of five institutions across the country to offer this course, which is modeled on the Bard College Clemente Course in the Humanities. Other participating institutions include Reed College in Oregon, Trinity College in Connecticut, Northeastern University in Massachusetts, and the University of Alaska in Anchorage.

The students receive instruction in disciplines including American history, moral philosophy, art history, literature, and critical thinking and writing. The course is funded in

part by the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), and is named for Martin Kellman, the College’s beloved professor of English who died in 1999.