 |
The Mildred M. Hutchinson Chair represents the Urban Foundation's 30-year investment in urban ministries education and training at the Claremont School of Theology. As a founding member of the Urban Foundation, Mildred M. Hutchinson had a strong commitment to urban ministries and programs for children and youth. Her dedication to the Urban Foundation’s growth and development was memorialized through the naming of the Mildred M. Hutchinson Professor of Urban Ministries at the Claremont School of Theology. The Urban Ministries program provides hands-on experience for seminary students to help them understand the unique challenges and benefits of ministering in urban areas. This program plays an important role in encouraging the church to embrace, rather than retreat from, the needs of the city. |
Hutchinson Professors have trained ministers and seminarians on asset-based community development, financial management, grant-writing and other practical skills needed to effectively run faith-based community-building programs in the urban core.
 |
Dr. Helene Slessarev-Jamir is the current Mildred M. Hutchinson Professor of Urban Ministries at Claremont School of Theology. Her published work includes The Betrayal of the Urban Poor (1997) and Prophetic Activism: Progressive Religious Justice Movements in Contemporary America (2011), as well as reports on promising national practices in community-based ministry among Asian and Hispanic immigrant religious communities. She has also written articles on congregational based community organizing and the role of public theology in an age of empire. She is currently focused on contemporary progressive prophetic activism in the United States. |