Reverend Jeffrey Brown to Return to ESU as Undergraduate Commencement Speaker

Posted by: Elizabeth Richardson on April 26, 2018, No Comments

Alumnus Reverend Jeffrey Brown ’82 will be the keynote speaker for East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania’s two undergraduate commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 5 in Koehler Fieldhouse.

Rev. Brown is a nationally recognized leader and expert in gang, youth and urban violence reduction and coalition building. He is the founder of RECAP (Rebuilding Every City Around Peace), a national initiative organized to assist cities in building better partnerships between the faith-based community, government and law enforcement agencies in an effort to reduce gang violence. He is also one of the co-founders of the Boston Ten Point Coalition, a faith-based group that was an integral part of the “Boston Miracle,” a process where the city experienced a 79 percent decline in violent crime in the ’90s, and spawned countless urban collaborative efforts in subsequent years that followed the Boston Ceasefire and faith-based model. Rev. Brown consults with municipalities and police departments on issues around youth violence and community mobilization, and provides expertise to Fortune 25 corporations on collaborative leadership and managing change.

The subject of a Harvard Business School case study on his efforts, Rev. Brown is an integral part of three other case studies from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is the recipient of numerous local and national awards and citations. He is the author of a forthcoming book titled The Courage to Listen, and has partnered with Paramount Pictures and the writing team of actor/writer Chadwick Boseman and Logan Coles on a feature film based on his experiences.

Brown graduated from East Stroudsburg State College in 1982. He served as the first African American student body president. Brown pastored the Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, Mass. for 22 years, has spoken and lectured widely, and is known for his fiery and inspiring messages. A resident of the Dorchester area of Boston, Mass., Rev. Brown has three grown children.

The ceremony awarding bachelor’s degrees from ESU’s college of arts and sciences and college of education will begin at 8:45 a.m. The ceremony awarding bachelor’s degrees from ESU’s college of business and management and college of health sciences will begin at 1:15 p.m.