Dr. Gail C. Christopher, who is executive director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity, will present the address “HOPE: Creating the Beloved Community” on Wednesday, Jan. 26, at 6:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts as the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil Rights Lecture at Hope College.
Christopher will be participating virtually via large-screen presentation, while a moderator will engage with her from on-stage.
The public is invited and admission is free. The event will also be livestreamed via the Hope College YouTube channel and on hope.edu/live.
Christopher is an award-winning social change agent with expertise in the social determinants of health and well-being and in related public policies. She is known for her pioneering work to infuse holistic health and diversity concepts into public sector programs and policy discourse.
She recently retired from her role as senior advisor and vice president at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, where she was the driving force behind the America Healing initiative and the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation effort. Christopher also served as Kellogg’s vice president for program strategy, and worked on place-based programming in New Orleans and New Mexico.
Christopher became the Executive Director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity in 2019. Based in Washington, D.C., the collaborative seeks to promote health equity by harnessing data, developing leaders, and catalyzing partnerships across the many different sectors that share responsibility for creating a more equitable and just society.
In 1996, Christopher was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. In 2015 she received the Terrance Keenan Award from Grantmakers in Health. She currently chairs the Board of the Trust for America’s Health. In 2019, she became a Senior Scholar with George Mason University’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being.
Audience members who need assistance to fully enjoy any event at Hope are encouraged to contact the college’s Events and Conferences Office by emailing events@hope.edu or calling 616-395-7222 on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Updates related to events are posted when available in the individual listings at hope.edu/calendar
Due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, Hope is currently requiring that masks be worn by all individuals while indoors on campus unless in their living space or alone in their work space.
The Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts is located at 221 Columbia Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets.