Marcia Wilson Brown has over 25 years of leadership and community service experience in the Newark community. She is the co-founder of the South Ward Junior Crimefighters, Harriet Tubman Girls Club, and the Women of Imani, a charitable organization serving poor and low-income families. She also served as President and co-founder of the University Heights Neighborhood Development Corporation (UHNDC), which developed more than sixty (60) units of affordable housing in the Central Ward for low to moderate income families.
Ms. Brown was recently appointed to Vice Provost position for the Rutgers Newark campus. She is the chief advisor and advocate for the University’s student life and community affairs activities and services.
Ms. Brown is a 1994 graduate of Rutgers University School of Law-Newark, New Jersey where she was elected class speaker and was the recipient of three honors: International Academy of Trial Lawyer’s Award; Judge J. Skelly Wright Award for Civil and Human Rights Activities, and the Rutgers Alumni Senior Award. She later served the law school in the position of Assistant Dean of the Minority Student Program (MSP) and Director of Financial Aid. In 1999, she was appointed Philanthropic Manager for the Lucent Technologies Foundation with primary responsibility for a $6 million dollar urban education strategy focused on Newark schools and non-profit organizations serving youth.
As a HUD alumnus, Ms. Brown served as a labor relations specialist and program manager with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1980-1994. Her tenure with HUD and other federal community development agencies has spanned almost twenty years, primarily in the area of urban planning, strategic analysis, and program design, implementation, and evaluation.
Ms. Brown serves on the board of many nonprofit and charitable organizations, including University Heights Science Park, Education Law Center, READY Foundation, Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams), and the Community Hills Early Learning Center, among others. She was former co-producer of “Parent Showcase” on Newark’s Gateway Cable TV and the executive producer and host of Cablevision’s “Justice Project”. Ms. Brown is the co-founder of “Return to the Source”, an a cappella singing group focused on the music of the civil rights movement, blues and jazz; and a poet who has performed with the Newark Writer’s Collective, Cultural Emanations and Black Rose Love.